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NEIGHBORS OF YESTERDAY 



BY 
JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER 

Author of "Wild Apples" 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1916 









Cover design by harvey m. lord 



Copyright, 1916 
Shermax, French & Company 



/ 



^H 



DEC 20 1916 



©C!.A453U)9 



TO 
MY MOTHER 



Where are the Americans? 

You may look for them vainly. 

They are remembered only by soap-box greybeards 

In the village stores^ and in farmhouses 

Crumbling to decay. 

In a little while the old life 

Will be lost; we shall not remember 

The simplicity and dignity 

Of the men of bygone generations. 

When the neighbors of yesterday are forgotten 

Who shall remind us to set value 

On the things that made us what ice are? 

Only so long as we remember — 710 longer — 

We shall endure as true A^nericans. 

We were founded in hard hammered granite 

From the quarry of noble traditions; 

Based on character, based on worthiness. 

Dig deep, you new men and you new women, 

Into the past — the most useful things lie there 

In the dust of oblivion. 

Dig them out — find the America that was, 

Or lose in the World-Game. 



FOREWORD 

The men and women who come to you in these 
groups of stories " Neighbors of Yesterday " and 
" Lumberjack Tales,'' were real men and women 
who lived within the boundaries of that section of 
the Adirondacks known as the North Woods. 
Their stories are true stories; their portraits are 
not embellished, nor has their curt idiom been per- 
ceptibly softened or altered. 

The psychology of the farmers and lumbermen 
of this particular section forty or fifty years ago 
was in many respects different from that of the peo- 
ple of the rural districts of New England, and ut- 
terly at variance with the characteristics of the 
sturdy settlers of the Middle West. The farmers 
of the country districts of New England had more 
subtlety; they were invested with the dignity of 
noble traditions that were kept untarnished for gen- 
eration after generation, while the agriculturists of 
the middle western states had a wider vision and a 
greater impulse to progress. 

The Adirondack farmers and lumbermen were a 
shrewd, kindly, simple people, bound together by 



a characteristic clannishness that gave them the 
feeling that they were a race apart from the dwell- 
ers in toAvns. They had little subtlety and they 
were not progressive. Life moved in a rut for 
them; they were content with what they knew and 
what they had, and resented the intrusion of nov- 
elty and change. 

" Once a native, always a native " held good. 
Not by kindness or generosity, or long residence 
among them, could a city man ingratiate himself 
into the genuine warmth of their hearts. Only 
those whose birthright was a low-roofed farm- 
house or a log shanty could speak the language of 
their souls. 

As recently as twenty-five years ago there were 
settlements in the North Woods where manners 
and customs were untouched by modernity; where 
the " dye pot " was still in existence ; where flannel 
and rag-carpets were woven on hand looms, and the 
spinning wheel hummed throughout the long winter 
evenings. 

As the lumber was gradually stripped from the 
hills and mountains, the old life began to change 
and primitive customs disappeared. There were 
new interests and new sources of prosperity. With 
the introduction of the cheap automobile changes 
took place more rapidly. State highways replaced 
the old, narrow roads. New farm machinery 
brought about different methods of farming; tour- 



ists rediscovered the country, and in their wake 
came all the sophistication of the city dwellers. 

The Neighbors of Yesterday of the North Woods 
are gone, save for a few granddams and grand- 
sires in the remote farmhouses of the back dis- 
tricts. There are a few lumber-jacks and river- 
drivers left, but they are not the capable, hardy, 
roystering men of the famous old camps. Here 
and there you will find a solitary lumber-jack who 
can sing the shanty-songs and knows the peculiar 
vocabulary of the lumber-gang. But for the most 
part this life is in truth of yesterday, and that we 
may remember it, even in small measure, I have 
tried faithfully to set down certain things that 
come crowding into my mind when I remember the 
days of my childhood in the Great North Woods. 

J. R. F. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Neighbors of Yesteebay Frontispiece ^ 

Facing Page 

The Old Sitting Eoom 40 



" A¥e peeled the hemloce: in the Summer time " 91 
A Lumber Shanty in the North Woods . . . Ill v/^ 



CONTENTS 

NEIGHBORS OF YESTERDAY 

PAGE 

Mis' Meegan 1 

Human Nature 6 

Ezra Brown 11 

Her Flowers 14 

The Hunchback 19 

Ben Enoch's Fools 24 

Transition 28 

Alec Hill: the Good-for-nothing 32 

The Backslider 37 

The Old Sitting Room 40 

The Deacon's Wife 43 

The Mother 45 

PooRHOusE Sketches 47 

Neighbors of Yesterday 50 

The Knitting Man .52 

The Coward 56 

Silence Davis 58 

Flint 63 

Union Blue 66 

The Sane Woman 71 



PAGE 

The Eoad 74 

Marriage 77 

"Old Salt" 80 

Simples 83 

Country Tragedy 86 

LUMBEE-JACK TALES AND BALLADS 

The Old Lumber-jack in Exile 89 

JiMMIE DOHERTY 93 

Conservation 96 

James McBride 102 

Singing Sam 105 

Nance Hills Ill 

River Driving 117 

Mary Tamahaw 119 

Sabeal 131 



NEIGHBORS OF YESTERDAY 



MIS' MEEGAN 

" Come," she said, " and we will go down the hill 

To see Mis' Meegan. I'll take that orange 

You brought me; she hardly knows what they are. 

She's the only real bachelor woman 

We ever had in these parts. She was married 

Just in name to her hired man, to keep him 

From hiring out to the neighbors. He died 

Long ago, worn out with running her farm. 

They say she has monej^, but one can't tell 
Seeing she lives from hand to mouth all the time, 
Selling a few eggs to buy groceries; 
The neighbors cut her wood free for her." 

We went down the hill. One could see the smoke 
Curling slowly up from a black chimney. 
But the turn of the road hid the farmhouse 
Until we could smell the ripe caraway 
That grew in the dooryard. 

The house had sunk 

Slowly into the ground, as the years passed; 
The dooryard had grown to weeds and caraway. 
And the banking of earth around the hewn sills 
Had been there for years ; quack grass and parsley 

[1] 



Matted the top; the clapboards had shriveled, 
And the shingled roof was green with fine moss. 

We knocked. A voice called out, " Come in — 

come in," 
And we stepped into a low, smudgy room. 
With an old-fashioned stove in the middle — 
One with a high oven and a low grate 
Burned red with years and years of hard wood 

fires. 
It was August, but coals were smouldering, 
And the room was as hot as a hayloft. 
Beside the stove sat an old woman 
Dressed in full skirts, a basque and kerchief, 
Aged as Time — a wrinkled mask of a face. 
And nothing human in it. 

" She's half blind," 

Said my friend; "you'll do just as she tells 
you." 

The mask lifted from the sunken breast; 

" Who be ye," it asked ; " what did ye come for? " 

The voice was like the crackle of frozen briars. 

" I brought you a little fresh loaf," my friend 
Answered, " and a visitor from the city." 

[2] 



" Is lie young? " said the mask. " Yes," replied 

my friend. 
" Let him come here : I'll put my hands over 
His face; I've forgotten how the young look. 

" — Ah, smooth — so smooth. Young man, are 
you courting? " 

I stammered the truth : " Yes, I was courting." 

" Bring her here ; I want to see you together 

Before I die; I've taken a notion 

I've been a fool all my life. It's too late 

Now to be seeing what lies in the world. 

I was born hard; to me, folks meant nothing; 

I don't remember thinking o' father 

Or mother, in a way you'd call lovin'. 

Perhaps they hadn't time to think of it — 

They had such a time to get a living; 

Perhaps 'twas because I couldn't read and write, 

And had to cut notches for my counting 

On cedar sticks. I worked out in the fields 

Always, early and late." 

" But you went once," 

My friend said, " long ago, on a journey." 

[3] 



The mask smiled — such a terrible grimace — 
The fleshless eye-lids trembled a moment 
And a tremor shook the withered shoulders, 
" Yes, I went on a packet boat as far 
As Rome on the Erie Canal, years ago. 
I was almost too young to remember — 
Never anywhere else, though." 

She reached down 

Into the folds of her skirt and drew out 

Tobacco and a clay pipe ; filled, lit it 

And puffed smoke out between toothless gums. 

My friend wrote me last month, saying, 
" You remember Mis' Meegan ; I went there 
Again, and she said, ' Is that young man coming 
With the girl he's courting? ' 

" ' Maybe,' I said ; 

* He can come up next year ; he's too busy 

To come here often.' 

" She took her clay pipe. 

Knocked the bowl on the hearth, laid it down 

And said : ' His face was so smooth ; you'd know 

he was young 
And courting. ... I don't know how old I am 

[4] 



But I've just found out one ought to be lovin' 
Before 'tis too late. I wish I'd seen them 
Together. . . . When you find out there's lovin' 
In the world, and going on all the time. 
Passing you hy, something you've never had, 
You've got to die; I'm going to do that.' 

" She limped to the bed room ; I helped her 
On the high four-poster bed, covered her 
And tidied up the kitchen a little. 
When I came to go, she was sound asleep, 
So I didn't disturb her. 

" Next morning 

We didn't see smoke from the chimney ; 

I put on my sunbonnet and went down : 

She had never stirred from where I left her ; 

She had died by some quick wrench of will power, 

Quitted a body no longer worthy 

Even her soul as a tenant. 

" I wish you had brought Sue up here before she 

died, — 
It might have done the old woman good 
Just to see you. Perhaps she'll find * lovin' ' 
Where she's gone. . . ." 



[5] 



HUMAN NATURE 

They said he had gone out to the village 
When I stopped at the farm in the morning 
To see Sam Perkins about a reaper ; 
So I drove slowly down to The Corners, 
Looking out on the fields along the way, 
And thinking how much new farm machinery 
Would improve the crops. Up in the mountains 
They farm in a rut just as they have farmed 
For two hundred years, with no rotation 
Of crops, or new seed, or any science. 
And their stock runs out and they get poor 
Because they set their faces against change. 

Yet after all I liked their stubbornness ; 
They had courage to resist the sure fate 
Of all that's living, and deny that change 
Or time could move them out of their ways. 
They were steadfast, while the town-folk yielded 
Without a murmur, like tame driven sheep, 
To the hurrying pace of the new age. 
Nor knew that in these remote fastnesses 
An idyllic life went on as before. 

I reflected when I brushed the warm dust 
From my hat as I drove to The Corners, 
I had come up here on a fool's errand. 

[6] 



The farmers would not buy machinery — 

And I felt guilty to offer it to them. 

Why should I disturb their accustomed ways? 

Did they actually need the new reapers? 

Why should a spring-tooth harrow seem better 

To them than the old one that was hand-made? 

And I hoped that the stubborn prejudice 

Against the new, and the strange, would triumph, 

And I should go away empty handed 

And fail to sell Sam Perkins a new reaper. 

I tied my horse to the gnawed hitching post 
By the general store, stepped inside the door 
And spoke to the store-keeper. 

" Good morning. 

Have you seen Sam Perkins about here? 

His wife told me he'd gone to the village." 

The store-keeper was packing eggs in a crate ; 
He looked up over his glasses at me. 
" No, I haven't," he said curtly. " What's the rea- 
son 
You want to see him? Is anyone sick 
At his house? " 

" No," I answered ; " not so far as I know." 
" Has the hired man quit, then? " he questioned. 

[7] 



" Or has he lost that red Jersey heifer 

He was trying to trade me last week Tuesday? " 

I laughed — " No, I've got business with him." 

" Well, he's done nothing wrong, I reckon. 
What might be your business with him, stranger? " 

"I sell harvesters — new farm machinery. 
I understand he has the largest farms 
And raises more grain per acre up here 
Than any other man in the county." 

He peered at me sharply, took off his glasses 
And wiped them on a wisp of brown paper ; 
Then he dared to trust himself to speak. 

" Now, there's not a bit of use of your trying 
To sell new farm machinery in these parts. 
The farmers have got all the tools they want. 
What be ye got to sell — those big reapers 
I saw at the Fair last fall? They're no use 
Up here : the ground's too rough and uneven, 
Sam Perkins never has bought a machine 
He could use. Why, his new patent mower 
Wouldn't run over his hillside meadows, 

[8] 



Where the stones are as thick as the timothy. 
We're satisfied with what we have up here — " 

" Yes, I know that," I answered, laughing ; 
" I've come to make you dissatisfied — 
That's my business." 

His old eyes twinkled. 

" That's a hard job, stranger," he answered. 

" We farmers know when we're well off up here." 

He paused and glanced about in the corners 

Among the litter of boxes and barrels 

To see that no one was listening to us, 

Then came closer and lowered his voice ; 

It carried a burden of shamed apology 

For something that lay on his conscience. 

" I've never give in 'cept on one thing," 
He said confidentially — " just one thing. 
I bought me an auto-wagon last summer 
Of a slick agent that come through here. 
And it won't run. It's out in the shed now. 
Perhaps being as you know machinery. 
If I speak right for ye to Sam Perkins 
You'll come out there with me for a minute 
And see what ails it? " 

A man came toward us 

As we went around outside to the shed. 

[9] 



" Hi there, Sam," the store-keeper called ; " come 

here; 
I want to make you acquainted with a man 
Who's rode all the way up from the city 
To sell ye a reaper. He's coming now 
To see what's the matter with my new auto." 



[10] 



EZRA BROWN 

There is one thing you always remember 

About a man more than any other. 

Sometimes it's a trick of his hand or eyes, 

Or an old coat, or a dangling muffler; 

And after a while in the neighborhood 

A man comes to mean just that one queer thing 

That sticks in the memory. I can see 

Just one thing when I think of Ezra Brown — 

His fingers fumbling at an old wallet 

Trying to find a coin that wasn't there 

To give to the needy. He spent his time 

Trying to find God, and so his wallet 

Had the worn lean look of a starved heifer, 

And a dumb eloquence that chided him 

For his own unworded reproachfulness 

Of its shortcomings. 

He had a passion 

That consumed him like a fire day by day : 

It was to walk consciously with his God 

As one might with a friend, to feel He entered 

Into all the day's concerns large and small, 

And was near so you could reach out to His hand 

If sorrow or trouble came upon you. 



[11] 



Ezra died on his knees praying; we found him 

Kneeling beside his bed one morning 

With his head drooped on the patchwork bed-quilt, 

Peaceful and quiet as a sleeping child. 

He had wanted to be a preacher; 

His father and grandfather before him 

Thundered the gospel out of the pulpit; 

Ezra wanted to follow their footsteps, 

But someone had to stay and work the farm, 

And so he gave up his hopes of preaching 

And settled down to be a plain farmer. 

There's his farm up there on the table land; 

It looks like a green patch on the mountain. 

I've wondered if his praying had to do 

With his crops, for the drouth never killed them 

And the frosts never troubled his uplands. 

He prayed when he was clearing the timber 

And kneeled in every freshly- turned furrow, 

And beside charred stumps in the new clearings. 

He swung the scythe and the buckwheat cradle 

To the meter of the Psalms of David, 

And set his flail flying at harvest time 

To the hymns of Whitefield and Charles Wesley. 

He cleared all his land and set out fruit trees. 
Worsted nature until she was humble 
And he could not feel her strong sullenness 

[12] 



Holding out against his crops and pastures. 
The hard work was done; he could take life easy, 
For the farm prospered and brought in the money 
He enjoyed giving away to tramps that came beg- 
ging. 
But right in the prime of life he lost heart 
And his mind clouded. He used to tell us 
He had lost God. He had made God his friend 
So long that he couldn't live without Him. 
He drove out to church regular and went forward 
For prayers, but even that didn't help him. 
Little by little we saw him going, 
Broken, dumb-like, to that far country 
That draws us surely when our work is done. 

Ezra must have made believe he was God 
Or a kind of steward, when he cleared the land 
And grubbed stumps and made smooth fields 
And planted them to rye and buckwheat and 

barley. 
When he had finished his work polishing 
The rough edges of nature the breath of life 
Someway went out of him. I think likely 
He had stopped creating; God never stops. 
If Ezra had understood and had more strength 
He would have pushed out farther into life 
And not let God go on ahead of him. 



[13] 



HER FLOWERS 

" Did she suffer much? " 

" Yes, the pain was dreadful." 

" And the new doctor, couldn't he help her? " 

" No, you see it had gone too far," he said, — 

" Past help ; she hid her trouble from us all. 

You would think that, being an old woman, 

She might have let the doctor see her breast 

And not thought of it. But she wouldn't — 

Not until he made her; it was too late. 

She didn't complain much when he told her 

That she could only live, perhaps, two months. 

Once she said, " Do you believe in heaven? 

What do you think it is like — harps and crowns 

And trailing white robes on the golden floors? 

I don't want those things — just my sun-bonnet 

And my calico dress to putter in. 

And my flowers. Heaven won't be heaven to me 

If I can't have some pineys and lilacs." 

"Who is that coming down the road? 
Is it the undertaker — I can't see? " 

" No, for he has white horses ; that's Dan Frost 
Driving to the farm to fetch his mother. 
It will be an hour before the funeral ; 
Let us go outside and look at her flowers." 

[14] 



" She had sights of them, late and early ; 
Her garden blossomed from May till snowfall. 
There by the fence are her lemon lilies, 
And the double hollyhocks, and the asters. 
There's the herb bed set in the fence corner, 
With the green and white creeper around it. 
There's the dahlias out by the grapevine. 
And a bed of marigolds and foxglove. 
And every piney you ever heard of. 
But the flower-bed that she set store by 
Was her grave-yard bed. 

" Come over this way — 

She never talked to the neighbors about it. 

But all the flowers came from some graveyard. 

She knew them all by name, — that is, the graves 

She'd taken them from ; she would say to me, 

' This bush is Niece Abigal's snowdrop. 

And that vine is Uncle John's myrtle. 

(He is buried down at Feudal Hollow.) 

The box border is Aunt Theodosia's, 

And the scarlet honeysuckle was set 

On young Ed Montgomery's grave on the hill. 

He took poison, perhaps you remember; 

They said his father turned him out of doors 

For spending the money he sold his steers for, 

To go to the city.' 

[15] 



" Here's a bride rose 

That came from Rose Latham's grave; she was 

buried 
In her wedding dress; her baby died too, 
And they laid the baby in her arms 
And she looked so happy — lay there smiling, 
Wistful, just like a bride ; she died in June, 
Just one year from the time she was married. 
Her mother set a Bride rose on her grave, 
And she took a root that had run outside. 
I think she liked that rose for her bouquets 
For meeting, better than any other rose. 
Every year from springtime to snowfall 
She carried a bouquet out to church 
To set on the preacher's desk during meeting ; 
After Sunday School she gave it away 
To someone ; I think folks will miss her flowers. 

" You remember she went to the city 
Once every year to visit her grandniece. 
She liked to go down there because her niece 
Lived next to a city burying-ground. 
It was the prettiest place in the world, she said, 
And she could get slips of new kinds of flowers. 
Once in a while there'd be a grand funeral, 
And she would go and stand with the mourners, 
And they would think that she was one of them, 
And give her a ride home in a carriage. 

[16] 



" Maybe 'twas wicked to pretend, she said, 

But then it wasn't all pretense either. 

For she was sorry when anyone died, 

And there isn't so much difference, after all. 

Between folks, when it comes to the end of life. 

" There, he's coming ; I can see the white horses. 

Let's go in ; he'll want some help, likely. 

I'll get those old silver combs for her hair. 

She was afraid she wouldn't look nice. 

I promised she should wear her best dress — 

The black cashmere she bought in the city — 

And have some white geranium in her hands." 



" Now you get in the back seat ; I'll sit there 
With you ; it's three miles to the graveyard. 
Don't cry — remember what the preacher said, — 
Though I always cry, too, when they're singing 
The last hymn. She picked that one out herself: 
' Beulah Land,' a queer hymn for a funeral, 
But kind of sweet — 

" Do look back up the hill — 

Did you ever see flowers as beautiful? 

They look like a ' Morning Star ' patchwork quilt 

Laid on the grass — 

[17] 



'^ Do you see anything? 

No, I'm not faint, something gave me a turn 

Just now. When I looked back at her flowers 

Something dazzled my eyes ; I could see her 

Standing there close beside the flower-beds. 

In her old calico and sunbonnet, 

Looking down the road, smiling after us. 

" Do you suppose that things go on the same 

After we're dead, only we can't see them, 

And we don't have to wait for Gabriel 

To blow the trump? She looked just as natural. 

For a minute it gave me a bad turn ; 

Of course, 'twas nothing but a dark shadow, 

Or a blur in my eyes. 

" I must dig up 

That Bride rose tomorrow, and set it out 

Over her down there in Pendal Hollow." 



[18] 



THE HUNCHBACK 

We sat on the horse-block by the church ; 
The sound of the preacher's voice came out 
Through the window like the singing drone 
Of the bumble bees in the red clover. 
Beside the church in the weedy graveyard 
There was a new-made grave. 

"Who's dead?" I asked. 

My friend answered : " Jim Pasco, the hunchback. 
He went last week ; the township will miss him. 
There wasn't a man thought of, respected 
More in these parts. We took advice from him, 
Elected him Supemsor three times. 
And nominated him for Assembly 
Years back on the Republican ticket. 
We were sorry he got beat at the polls. 
I suppose being a cripple hurt him 
Where he wasn't known. 

" We had forgotten it ; 

He had a secret I've found out since he died — 
Of contriving to seem what he wanted to be. 
Jeff Gideon will tell you the story : — 
Hi, Jeff, come out o' that smoky horse-shed." 

[19] 



Jeff came, tall, gaunt, blue-eyed, stoop-shouldered. 
Lagging along. 

" You tell him the story 

Humpy Pasco told you the night he died." 

Jeff sat down, flicked a straw from his coat-sleeve. 
Looked to the westward and spoke of the weather. 

" Fine weather we're having now ; I reckon 

Haying'll be done before camp-meeting." 

Took off his hat, mopped his brow, picked the straw 

From the ground : " The winter'll be open, — 

The oats ar'n't filling." He looked at the grave 

As if he tried to remember something. 

We didn't speak, so Jeff told the story. 

" I never carried anyone so light 

As he was in his coffin — like a child ; 

There wasn't very much of him in body, 

Yet he made a stir in the county 

Like a man twice his size : which shows it don't 

Depend on the way you're born, what you do 

In the world. I think this made the difference — 

He wanted us to see him different 

From what he was. He succeeded, leastwise 



[20] 



We never thought about the way he looked 
To strangers. I never saw a worse cripple — 
One born so, four feet tall, humped like a camel, 
Misshapen everywhere, left arm withered. 
Fastened to his chest with a band of flesh. 
They never took him to see a doctor 
A^^hen he was young ; you know how slack folks are 
Even about improving flesh and blood 
On these back farms here in the mountains. 
Then he had no neck to speak of ; you've noticed 
That hunchbacks' heads grow out of their shoul- 
ders. 
But he was strong; with his single good arm 
He could keep even up with me hoeing. 
And do everything a two-armed man could, — 
Fight like a wildcat if you but crossed him, 

" He was strong to the last ; his heart trouble 
Didn't weaken him much ; it came sudden. 
The doctor said he might live a month. 
But he said a week — and he kept his word. 
He didn't need watchers ; still, he was lonely. 
And I sat with him nights ; I wasn't working 
And slept days. The last night he kept talking 
Just as if he was looking down at himself 
From a long way off — 



[21] 



" He said : ^ 'Tis a mystery 

I never fathomed, why God made me crooked, 

And science-books never made it plainer. 

What is a " Cause"? There must be some reason 

Behind it, and back of that, others — 

Only God at the end of the tangle. 

And we come into this world and go out 

Not finding out any more about Him 

Than we knew at the first, nor His reasons. 

" ' I was born crooked — you don't sense it early 

If you're born that way, or know what it means, 

Mother kept it from me ; I went to school 

And found out, and my heart became bitter, 

For I wanted everything that whole men want ; 

My heart beat as theirs ; I was hungry for living 

Free, out in the world. I wanted my woman, 

A mate, children to grow up around me. 

And here I was ugly as sin, and half broken — 

Just a part of a man — a joke, a sight 

To make you shudder or laugh, or weep maybe. 

" ' Well, time went on, and I kept to myself, 
Reading grandfather's books ; he was a preacher 
And had a chest full of Commentaries. 
Reading those books, the miracle happened: 
If faith could save souls, it must save the body ; 
What did Paul mean? Was he writing nonsense 

[22] 



With " Faith is the suT)stance of things hoped for " ? 
No, the Word meant to me all I wanted; 
I found " faith " ; I fooled you/ he chuckled, 
Then went on again with a struggle for breathing : 

" ' Yet, after all, I wonder if I did? 

Or was the world so kind out of pity? 

I played my part well, never faltered or wavered. 

Seeing myself as I should be, forgot 

At the last I was crooked — forgot it — 

For I felt I was straight, and held my place 

Among men, fooled them — even a woman 

Saw me thirty years day in and day out. 

And never once knew I was ugly as Satan. 

I've had my heaven. Every time she looked at me 

Her eyes lit as if she had seen a star 

Come out in the sky, or a baby smile. 

But I lived on the edge of hell all my life. 

Fearing faith wouldn't hold out and she'd see 

Me just as I was — ' " 

Jeff stopped a minute 

And pulled the straw through his fingers. 

Took off his hat, mopped his brow gently — 

" He didn't say much more you could tell of. 
Toward morning he slept ; I dozed off for a minute 
And when I woke up — he was gone." 

[23] 



BEN ENOCH'S FOOLS 

Ben Enoch bought his farm back in wartime 
Acre by acre as chance favored him. 
At last he had three hundred acres lying 
Along Mill Creek. The flat Beaver Meadows 
Lifted to rolling hills with fern gullies 
Where cool streams trickled down from the moun- 
tains 
Through thickets of sweet fern and dogwood. 
Then he bought the ground for his own homestead 
And built a house and painted it York Brown 
(Years after we called it the Red House Farm), 
And set out apple trees over the place, — 
Fall Pippins, Pound Sweets, Ben Davis, and Rus- 
sets, 
Wine-Saps, Gilly Flowers, Sheep-Nose, Spice Sweet- 
ings 
And twenty other kinds we've forgotten, 
Except when we go gypsying in the Fall 
And smell fruit passing by an old orchard, — 
Cidery, chilled by the early frosts 
And water-cored by the warm noon-day sun ; 
Then our mouths drip for those old apples, 
And the names chime in our minds like the tinkle 
Of the sheep-bells in an upland pasture. 



[24] 



Ben Enoch was land-liungry ; he wanted 

More than he could work to advantage. 

But he put droves of sheep on the hillsides 

And raised cattle and kept a big dairy. 

He packed his butter in tubs and teamed it 

Out to the railroad and prospered and prospered. 

But he had one strange quirk in his make-up : 
Among the hired men who worked for him 
He always kept one fool, some poor fellow 
Just to make sport for him and the others ; 
And as soon as one died or ran away 
He would hunt up another — a real fool 
Not one who was just daft or half-witted. 
He liked them best that way. I've heard him 
Talk after chore-time in summer : 

" No-sir-ee. 

No half fools for me ; I had one once ; * Johnny/ 
We called him ; he was half-witted. 
They palmed him off on me at the Poor-house 
As a genuine fool ; bless you, he wasn't. 
I kept him a spell, but never felt easy. 
There are two kinds of men to have near you : 
Smart men or fools, — real fools \s4thout cunning. 
Honest and simple, who'll work for you, grateful 
For their clothes and a penny or nickel 
Fair-time to spend on peppermint candy, 

[25] 



And contented as Rover my sheep-dog. 

Johnny was dangerous, he could think sometimes, 

Once in a while : there lay the trouble. 

Try as you would, you'd never discover 

Which days were the days he was a stark fool. 

And which he was thinking just as you were. 

"And did he harm you?" I asked. 

" No, he was harmless — 

That didn't trouble me, — 'twas the bother 

Of wondering how I should speak to him 

And never quite knowing if I should say 

Words to him, or whistle as to Rover. 

I sent him back, and I made up my mind then 

A man who knows half is always a danger ; 

Who can tell what he'll do when he's angered? 

And by-and-by he'll ask you for money. 

Now Johnny learned about reading and writing 

And how to count money ; he got a man 

To write to Chicago to get him a wife. 

And he used to wait and watch for the stagecoach 

Hoping she'd come : — now you couldn't stand that. 

" If a man who's hard-worked wants to take 
Solid comfort, I'd tell him to hunt out 
And get a real fool to chore round for him. 
For a fool will always see right in your doings, 

[26] 



Smile if you smile, keep away if you frown. 
Nobody can hire him from you ; he'll be loyal 
As Rover here. You can have affection 
From fools; they're as gentle as children, 
Asking no more of you than their keeping — 
Something to eat, a bed in the corner. 
And a place in the kitchen to snuggle 
Close by the stove in the cold days in winter. 
In my lifetime I've taken more pleasure 
With real loving fools than with smart men. 
Women's the same; steer clear of the pert ones." 



[27] 



TRANSITION 

They were sitting on the low stone doorstep 
In the cool of evening after milking. 
They were peaceful — all the chores were done ; 
But ambition's flame had caught in their minds 
And they did not sense the breath of summer 
Exhaled upwards from a great June rose-bush 
That cupped the dew in a hundred blossoms, 
And the fireflies darting through the twilight 
Seemed to them only the sparks of desire 
That leaped from their hearts over the meadows. 

A beetle crawled from the grass and lifted 
His wet wings for a scurrying love-flight. 
But the man caught him and pressed his life out 
In the earth that bore him, absent-mindedly. 
For he was thinking of the crops on the hillsides 
And the price of wool, of calves and yearlings, 
And whether he could sell the sheep pasture 
To a neighbor. 

His wife spoke, continuing 
The thought in his mind, back of the others : 
"We're doing it all for the children. 
What can they ever amount to back here 
In this valley full of Canucks and Cath'lics, 
We must move next Spring down to the village 
And build a fine frame house with good windows 

[28] 



And never say we lived in a log one 

'Way up here at the far end of no-where. 

For I know that folks do think of these things. 

Now last Sunday, when we drove out to church, 

I saw the Wilson girls tripping along 

In their French cashmeres and soft kid slippers. 

And in the Sunday School they would not speak 

To our Grace in her plain light calico ; 

And when the teachers gave out the pieces 

For the speaking at the Sunday School picnic 

She gave them to those girls : they were dressed 

Better than ours. Now you know that our Grace 

Can speak ten psalms, and knows more pieces 

In a minute than those children could learn. 

What do you think of it? " 

" Ed Wilson owes me 
For a load of hay he bought last winter. 
He's no better than we are — not so good ; 
There's no man in town who will trust him 
For a barrel of flour. He went down below 
Years ago and got dirty work to do. 
He's what men in politics down there call 
A lobbyist — you don't know what that means. 
He does dishonest things that men can't do 
Because they are in power, for they would lose 
Their places if men find they pull the strings 
To pass a law that they want made themselves.'' 

[29] 



The wife's mind lagged. " Yes, yes, I know ; 
What has that got to do with all I said? " 

" Not much ; I was just thinking on out loud. 

I feel the same as you do — this old farm 

Ain't good enough for Grace and Marcia. 

I've been a planning, though I've not told you 

There was a fellow up here last week 

A-picking over on the mountain there 

Among the rocks. He says there's lead up there, 

And rich iron ore. Now, if that comes out true, 

Ed Wilson needn't lord it over me. 

We'll move to town and build a big frame house." 

She placed her hand on his — it seemed a dream. 
" Yes, and I'll buy a red plush parlor set 
And you will let me keep a hired girl. 
And Grace and Marcia shall have cashmeres 
And parasols and soft kid, button shoes, 
And by-and-by they shall go off to school 
Down in the city somewhere. They will turn 
Into such ladies that you'd never think 
They ever saw a log house or a farm." 

The dew was falling; all the flowers were wet; 
Dampness lay on their hair. " We must go in," 
She said. " I'll light a lamp. Come now and look 
To see if they are surely fast asleep." 

[30] 



She led the way, holding the lighted lamp, 
Into the bedroom where in trundle beds 
The children slept — wee Grace and Marcia ; 
Dreaming of play, they smiled within their sleep, 
And like fringed petals of Elysian flowers 
Upon their cheeks their long, dark lashes lay, 
While their sweet breathing stirred the fragrant 

air. 
The parents stood there hushed to sudden awe 
At the great miracle that love had wrought. 
And hushed by some enkindled reverence 
They went out softly, creeping to their beds. 



[31] 



ALEC HILL: THE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING 

He was an out-and-out good-for-nothing, 

But Sam Carpenter, the rich lumberman, 

Always set great store by him for bunting. 

And all the money he had ever earned 

Sam gave him for tracking deer with him. 

He borrowed and stole and squeezed through the 

year 
Without working a tap ; the neighbors helped 
His good-natured wife and seven children. 
And when snow fell the poormaster would come 
And take the children to the county house 
Until the warm weather came in the Spring. 

Alec had a sort of a house on Kenyon Hill, — 
A shack, a lean-to of logs patched together, 
Not fit for human beings to live in. 
One time his wife was sick and I went there 
To carry some food ; they were starving. 
I counted seventeen holes in the roof 
That let in daylight ; the rain was dropping 
On the floor and running down the timbers. 
You might just as w^ell have been in the woods 
And better, for a tree w^ould give more shelter. 
I sliced bread and tossed it to the children. 
They snatched it from me and ran to hide. 
Just as young partridges run to cover 

[32] 



When the hen-partridge krakes her note of warn- 
ing. 
They were so wild that if strangers went there 
They ran to the woods and hid in gullies, 
Disappearing like the elves you read about 
In the gnarled roots of the fallen timber 
Or in the heaps of brown leaf mould. 
The}^ were so tanned, being mostly naked. 
You couldn't see them once they entered 
A wood-lot. 

When Alec brought home a deer 

They cooked it out-of-doors in an iron pot 

And those children danced around the kettle 

Like young cannibals waiting for missionary. 

Alec would throw marrow bones out to them 

And they would sit down and gnaw. That's the 

way 
They lived, — and he had forty acres of land 
That he was too lazy to cultivate. 
Sometimes the neighbors would give him fresh seed 
And make a "bee" for planting and hoeing, 
But after they did all that work for him. 
He would let the potatoes freeze in the ground 
And never cut his corn nor husk it, 
And winter would come on while he hunted 
For city folks. His wife didn't complain ; 
She was used to her life and 'most likely 

[33] 



Knew he would never change, so she bore it 
And got along somehow through each winter ; 
And even if she did come out spring-poor 
She seemed to love that good-for-nothing man. 

One day Sam Carpenter died ; 'twas a " shock." 
And it turned out that he had asked 
Alec Hill to be a " bearer " in case he died ; 
And Mis' Carpenter said what Sam wanted 
He should have. So we sent to get Alec. 
He came, long-haired, barefooted, hatless. 
One suspender over an old blue shirt 
Above a pair of what once had been trousers. 
We saw we could never have the disgrace 
Of seeing a man like that at a funeral. 
I lent him a white shirt and a collar, 
And Rube Tripp let him have a tie and socks ; 
Granny Braloy went up in her garret 
And found Grandsire Braley's old wedding suit; 
Jim Mosher gave him a good, black felt hat. 
And Mis' Carpenter let him have Sam's black shoes. 
We cut his hair and sent him to the creek 
With a cake of soap. He came back faded 
Some, but clean and fresh looking. 
Then we helped him into the clothes 
And stood back admiring our handiwork. 
He was a handsome figure of a man 
Even in misfits and borrowed toggings. 

[34] 



Well, Alec was a " bearer " and sat with us. 
For one day he was one of us, a neighbor, — 
Not the slinking, shiftless vagabond 
We had cast out from the community 
And promised a coat of tar and feathers 
If he didn't mend his ways in the future. 

Afterwards, he stripped himself of his plumage 
And put on the old patched rags again 
And went off up the road sort of dazed looking. 
We couldn't believe what we heard the next day,- 
That Alec Hill had gone down to The Corners 
And hired out to team it for the pulp mill. 
We said he wouldn't stay, but he drove team 
All Summer and earned ten dollars a week. 
The first thing he did was to buy a suit 
Of black broadcloth all bound around with braid 
Like the old one he'd worn at the funeral, 
And all the fixings — hat, shoes, necktie, socks. 
Then, come Spring, he clothed up his family 
And built over his house and put floors in. 
And that year he raised enough potatoes 
To feed the children all through the winter. 

We didn't have much faith in his reforming, 
But he hung on, and moved down to The Corners, 
Traded his farm land for a place down there. 
So he could send those children to school, 

[35] 



You'll see Alec at church every Sunday, 
Summer and Winter he wears that black broad- 
cloth. 
He seems afraid ever to leave it off 
For fear the spell would vanish, and he'd go back 
To his old, lazy, shiftless ways of living. 

Respectability's half in its trappings. 

Maybe if I had always worn old rags 

And never had shoes to put my feet in 

I might have been just the same as he was — 

A shiftless, out-and-out good-for-nothing." 



[36] 



THE BACKSLIDER 

" No, Mis' Talbot, I'm not going to church. 
I never thought I'd be a backslider, 
But I've come to it at last. The new preacher 
Has upset all my ideas of religion, 
For he don't believe the Bible is true, — 
Leastwise only in parts. To his thinking, 
Adam and Jonah never were alive: 
They are just story-book folks. I heard that 
And didn't flinch, for Adam don't mean much 
To a Methodist who can't believe 
In John Calvin and predestination. 
Besides, Adam always seemed to me weakly 
In his mind. I'm not a voting female 
Champing for women to do everything. 
But I do think Eve was an improvement 
On Adam. 

" Now about old Jonah : 
I always took him with a ' grain of salt.' 
He must have been shiftless and careless; 
I never could abide a lazy man. 
I think we ought to raise our own gourd vines 
To keep the sun from giving us sunstroke. 
And not lay too much on the Lord's shoulders. 
I stood the preacher's talk until he killed Job ; 
Then I rose right up in meeting and said : 

[37] 



' No, you cannot take Job away from me. 

He was a perfect and an upright man, 

And he has been my good friend all my life/ 

" I can see him just as plain as can be 
Bearing the scourges of the Almighty 
With fortitude, and I know how he felt 
When God spoke to him out of the whirlwind. 
Job has been the friend of so many folks 
I wonder even the new minister 
Dares to say a word against him, and tell 
This generation that he never lived. 
He is more alive than some men I know 
Breathing on earth today. 

" So now you see 

Why I'm not going to church any more. 
I'll sit here under the Sweet Locust tree 
While you're gone, and read a chapter or two, — 
Perhaps the thirty-eighth chapter of Job, 
That tells of the morning stars singing 
Together with the Sons of God for joy. 
And of the ' understanding of the heart,' 
For all the people who ever did any good 
In this world understood things with the heart,- 
And the world won't be much different 
In that, I fancy the new minister 
Hasn't found his heart yet. After he's lived 

[38] 



And sufifered, he'll take Job out of his grave 
And find he is alive, and a friend, 
And say with him in humbleness of mind : 
' I have uttered that I understand not,' 
And find in the end Job's peace and Job's bless- 
ings." 



[39] 



THE OLD SITTING ROOM 

There were two pictures hung upon the wall, 

One was called " Mercy at the Wicket Gate," 

The other, " Contemplation " ; and beneath this one 

There ran the stately psalm : " When I remember 

The heavens — the work of Thy fingers. 

The sun, the moon and the stars, 

Which Thou hast ordained. 

What is man that Thou art mindful of him. 

Or the Son of Man that Thou visitest him? " 

There were three windows facing towards the West, 
That sunned our house plants, sweet geraniums, 
A calla, winter pinks, a Christmas rose, 
Begonias, amaryllis, flowering musk 
And purple fuchsias — all the homely flowers 
That grew in sitting rooms long years ago. 

I still can hear the clinking of the fire, 

A neighbor woman bustling gently in. 

" Land now, Mis' Putnam, how your flowers do 

grow. 
I set the slips you cut for me last year. 
But I'm no hand with flowers ; they surely know 
You love them. Now, I've brought my knitting 

work 
So I could sit and knit and see your flowers. 

[40] 



c/: 



crq 




I've always said I'd rather come and knit 
Here in the sunshine in your sitting room 
Than to go out to town. Is that rug new — 
The braided one, I mean? You are so spry. 
I've had rags cut for months to make a rug 
And they lie in the woodshed-chamber yet, 
I see you've pieced new cushions for the chairs. 
That old Log Cabin pattern just suits me. 
What do you do with all that pile of books? 
Why, it's as much as ever I can do 
To read the Almanac and Weekly News! " 

My mother smiled — her slow, sweet, faded smile. 
She liked the praise of her worn, homely room; 
She loved the homage to her winter flowers; 
But now her smile was tinged with raillery : 
" We've always been great readers here, Mis' 

Brown. 
And every night, when all the chores are done, 
We sit and read till time for evening prayers." 



Oh, I remember how we read till evening prayers! 
The wood fire blazed within the high iron stove 
And charred the maple slabs to ruddy coals. 
Before the fire the watch dog dreamed at peace, 
And father read beside the low oil lamp. 

[41] 



Those golden days are gone; the world sweeps on; 
New faces come, and the old faces go. 
And our old sitting room has gone the way 
Of all forgotten, gentle, lovely things. 

Yet somewhere, stable in unstable time. 
The painted clock tick-tocks the quiet hours, 
The gay rag carpet hides the knotty floors, 
The lamplight wanders in among the flowers, 
Toby lies dreaming of the hunt's hot chase 
Before the fire, and hushed from revelry 
We listen to the even rise and fall 
Of father's voice lost in a mellow tale 
Of noble wars and young blood's chivalry. 
Over us " Mercy at the Wicket Gate " 
And " Contemplation " look out to the stars 
Beyond the mountains, and we are at peace 
With God and man in our old sitting room. 



[42] 



THE DEACON'S WIFE 

She was a woman who played the fiddle 

And never professed to have religion, — 

At least not orthodox. Now, her husband 

Was a deacon, and 'twas unbecoming 

For a deacon's wife not to be pious, 

And often he was ashamed in meeting 

To see her sitting in a back seat 

Stony-like, while he prayed and exhorted. 

And sinners coming to the Mercy Seat 

Thought it strange she never shook hands with them 

And urged them to " go forward," or said " Amen " 

To the deacon's exhorting. 

She was kind 

To poor folks, and went out to nurse the sick ; 
And when Abe Scripture's boy got diphtheria 
She was the first one to go and watch there, 
But there was something about her still ways, 
And the guard she set always on her tongue, 
That made folks talk and gossip about her ; 
And some of them went so far as to say 
She didnH believe in God. 

When we had 

Our church revival meetings in the Fall, 

And the minister prayed for lost sinners, 

[43] 



We felt that the deacon's wife was one of them, 
And prayed for her without mentioning names, 
Hoping she'd see the light. 

But she didn't. 

And held to her own way, while the deacon 

Groaned and wrestled with God for salvation. 

He never complained, but we thought often 

How a real pious wife would have helped him. 

He had married her when he was away 

And brought her up to the country a stranger. 

She could have turned the whole feeling we had 

If she had once talked out in class meeting 

And let us know that she believed in original sin 

And infant damnation and other church doctrine; 

But she never did. 

And we never knew 
How queer she was until the deacon 
Dropped dead one day out in the cornfield. 
She buried him proper; had a sermon. 
And the choir singing hymns the deacon liked ; 
But after that she never came to church. 
When we pass the house going to meeting 
We always hear her playing the fiddle — 
Scraping out some jig-tune on the Sabbath. 



[44] 



THE MOTHER 

She stood at the ironing board pressing a shirt 

Of white calico. " This shirt is for George," 

She said. " He is going to town Sunday 

To Nance Wilson's party ; he couldn't go 

Until I made this shirt; he never had 

A white one before, we have been so poor." 

I spoke sharply : " Nance Wilson is a vain 

woman — 
Not bad that I know of, but silly. 
Do you let your husband go there alone, 
And iron his shirts to make him look decent 
In her eyes? " 

" I dunno," she said, pausing 
To turn the shirt bosom on the wide board, 
" Why I shouldn't ; / can't leave the children. 
She has fine silk dresses, and soft carpets 
In her house, George ain't had much of a chance. 
I thought it might perk him up to go there. 
You know men have a hankering somehow 
For women like Nance; she can talk just grand, 
George says, about what she's seen in New York. 
He gets ideas of stepping up higher 
In the world from her. What could I teach him? 
I can't read or write. Children must look up 

[45] 



To their father; maybe Nance mil make him 
Feel he ought to get a job and go to work. 
I've seen there's something in women like her 
(I suppose it's their clothes and their fixings 
And their being free to go out in the world) 
That will make a man work and make something 
Out of himself." 

" But/' I clung to my chiding, 
" Don't you care about it? George is your hus- 
band. 
Aren't you jealous about his going there? " 

She slipped the shirt from the board carefully 

And hung it on a chair to dry in the sun, 
And answered : " Sometimes it went against me 
To do what I had to do for him ; 
I don't think of myself now ; I don't matter. 
He never had a mother to do for him. 
You are not married ; your husband is a child 
After you've been married years as I have. 
If he wants to go, why, I must help him 
And iron his shirt ; he's grateful to me." 



[46] 



POORHOUSE SKETCHES 

PELEG SKINNER 

We drove up the Mil to the County House; 

On the way we met Peleg Skinner 

Hobbling: down to the corn field with his hoe. 

He had been in the County House for years, 

But the look of the free wild animal 

Hunting for itself had never died out of his eyes. 

" How do they use you up here now, Peleg? " 
I asked; "do they give you any butter?" 
" No," he snorted, " there's never any butter 
Except on Sundays; we get molasses, 
But I never did like black molasses. 
Oh, it's good enough, good enough for paupers ; 
Maybe if my rheumatism gets better 
I can leave this Fall and go to farming 
And look out for myself. But I'm afraid, 
Because I talk with the other paupers 
And they're afraid. So we keep on staying. 
It's a disease that's catching; I hoe corn 
To get the fear I can't make a living 
Out of mind. When I first came up here 
I was sure I could get away in the Spring, 
But when Spring came I put off going out 
Till Fall, and somehow kept just staying on. 
It's all right if they'd give us china cups 

[47] 



Instead of tin ones to drink our tea out of, 
And good butter instead of molasses." 

THE GREEN BOW 

He went on and we drove up the long windy hill 
And stopped the horse in front of the main building. 
A little old woman who was sweeping 
The low porch dropped her broom and ran. 
The Wife of the Man Who Kept the County House 
Stepped gingerly along the entryway, 
And took grudging account of our errands. 
" Why did the little old lady run away? " I asked. 
The Wife of the Man Who Kept the County House 
Laughed, and said, " Oh, she's crazy ; she's been here 
For twenty years ; she has no folks at all. 
No one ever comes up here to see her. 
But someway — I don't know how she got it — 
She found a green bow, a small satin thing 
Such as you'd wear at your neck, — it's her knick- 
knack ; 
And when anyone drives up here she runs out 
And pins that bow on her drilling dress. 
She'll be here in a minute if you'll wait." 
She came soon — hitching down the corridor — 
And picked up her broom. On her patched drilling 

dress. 
Threadbare with age, faded, ugly, pathetic, 
Hanging in coarse folds on her spare frame, 

[48] 



A green satin bow was pinned with a safety pin. 
She curtsied to ns and went on sweeping, 
A look of satisfied vanity, immeasurable content 
On her wrinkled face. 

" She worships that bow," 

Said the Wife of the Man Who Kept the County 

House ; 
"I humor her and let her have it; she's a worker. 
I wouldn't wonder, if she ever lost it 
Or the thing wore out, but it might kill her." 



[49] 



NEIGHBORS OF YESTERDAY 

When I go to see her, I look about the room 

Where she sits placidly knitting — knitting. 

It has the curious musty odor 

Of our grandmother's parlors. The old things 

One remembers are all there around her: 

The hair-cloth furniture; the kaleidoscope 

On the " What-not," the wax flowers under glass, 

The cardboard motto on the walls, saying 

" God Bless Our Home " with flourishes 

And sprays of rosebuds in fine shaded wools; 

The antimacassars on the rocking chairs. 

The album on the marble-topped table, 

The striped rag carpet hiding the rough floor. 

In the corner a sheaf of cat-tails tied with a ribbon, 

A box of sea-shells on the mantel, 

And a souvenir of Niagara Falls, 

And pink china dogs and gilded vases 

Of dried Everlasting flowers dyed scarlet. 

On the walls are the family portraits : 

Large tintypes that look out from oval frames, 

Daguerreotypes in velvet cases. 

Edged with their faded crinkling gold. 

The woman who sits here knitting — knitting 
Is never lonely, she tells me, for neighbors 
Of yesterday come and keep her company. 

[50] 



It does not trouble her delight in them 
That to me they are but shifting shadows, 
Projected into the world of reality 
By her love for them. 

They are called to her 

By that longing for perpetuation 

That lived once timidly in their bodies, 

And now, shorn of the fleshly vehicles. 

Gathers in cloistral dwellings, in old things. 

Loving stone most of all, and gripping close fingers 

Upon wood well seasoned with usage. 

There is passion in their mute returning 
To this eddy of cast-off mortality; 
There is passion in the woman who calls them — 
In her wdlful insistence that nothing 
Can escape the self-centered mind moving 
Backward steadfastly, as it is pushed forward 
By the onrushing force of time and change, 
Until it joins the opposite arc of the circle 
And is immortal in its own fullfillment. 



[51] 



THE KNITTING MAN 

Look down the road — he is crossing the bridge ; 
He'll pass the cranberry bush in a minute. 
(I must pick those cranberries tomorrow 
And make some sauce for the harvesters ) . 
Now you can see the long stocking dangling 
And the steel needles he's using. 
He walks over the roads year in and year out 
Knitting — knitting. His hair has grown long 
And hangs over his thin shoulders like strings. 
The rains and the snows beat down upon him 
Winter and Summer; he won't wear a hat 
Because, he tells you, he can't see the sky. 

Why don't folks have him sent to the asylum? 

Why, he isn't crazy — just touched a bit; 

He'll take your yarn and knit stockings for you 

If you will sit and listen to his message. 

He comes here twice a year, and I listen. 

And after he's gone I feel better. 

Just as I do when I've been to meeting 

And seen sinners come to the " Mercy Seat " 

For salvation when their sins get heavy. 

I have an idea he won't live long, 

His face is too white ; he don't eat much. 

I have seen him nights walking along, 

[52] 



And I tell you his face shines in the dark 
And you think of pictures in the Bible. 

No, he's not coming here ; he's passed the gate. 
I wish you could have heard him talk just once. 
He was married when he was a young man 
To Etta La Rose, a little French girl. 
Her people came down here from Canada. 
She was like a china doll, all pink and white, — 
Looked as if the wind would blow her away 
With one breath. They went to live on the hill 
On the Lavery Place, and all went well 
Till the baby came — and lived just a w^ek. 
Then Etta pined and cried for her baby ; 
You could see she was fading right away. 
And the doctors couldn't do anything. 

Then, the Knitting Man was a likely boy. 

He had been brought up by religious folks 

Who taught him that God did answer our prayers 

So he turned the doctors out of the house 

And sat down and read the Bible to her, 

For he really believed all that it said 

About healing the sick. But in spite of reading 

She grew weaker and weaker, and we saw 

That she hadn't much more hold upon life 

Than a white rock flower in a dry Summer. 

[53] 



One morning he said that God had spoken ; 

She would be healed that day. He lifted her, 

Anointed her with oil, scripture fashion. 

And said to her, " Take up thy bed and walk," 

Just as Christ commanded the poor cripple. 

She did walk, or totter for a minute, 

And a miracle happened — or he thought so : 

For the color came to her face, her eyes 

Flamed, and she cried out his name — " Silas." 

'Twas the light that comes once to the dying; 

She fell like a broken flower in his arms. 

With a drip of red from her poor pale lips. 

And he raved and raved for weeks with brain fever. 

And when he came out of it and got well 
He began reading the Bible again. 
And gave everything he had to the poor. 
And started walking the roads late and early 
He said that faith had failed to save his wife 
Because he had not obeyed the Word, 
And that now he must carry God's message 
Up and down, never resting, until he died. 
He offers to knit stockings for his food. 
And lodges under the stars all Summer; 
In Winter he'll sleep 'most anywhere, — 
Places even a dog would be cold in. 



[54] 



What is his message? I wrote it down once. 

It is in the Bible, though he changes 

The wording. It is about the Kingdom 

That men's flesh and blood cannot inherit, 

And about being as little children, 

And the love that passeth all knowledge. 

And about the resurrection promised 

The Beloved of the Lord, and all. 

You remember, about our forgiving 

Everyone and setting our affections 

Above earthly things. He winds up with this 

It is in St. John : '' I have manifested 

Thy Name/' 

Strange how touched folks and fools 
Seem to find the way of the Lord easy. 
What is it that bars the way in our minds 
And makes it so hard to find salvation? 
You can't see him now. I must stop talking 
And bake up for harvest men tomorrow ; 
You might pick those cranberries for me. 



[55] 



THE COWARD 

It is all right for a man to be kind, 

But there's such a thing as being too soft 

To get on well with your work and neighbors. 

I've often wondered just where the line lay. 

Now, I think death is a mercy sometimes. 

And we have a right to take it, or give it, — 

Only we must be sure that we are right. 

There's something wrong in life as I see it : 

You've got to fight for everything you have. 

And Nature's not kindly 'bout ways and means. 

She's a flighty, unreasonable person 

And she don't respect a coward at all. 

The only man who ever tames her in harness 

Is the man who don't fear her devilments. 

Dave Murdock was a coward and fond of cats, 
Though I dunno as the two go together. 
But he kept on feeding stray kittens. 
And naturally more kept coming — and then 
The milk from two cows wouldn't feed them 
And make any butter for Dave to eat. 
He couldn't make a living because of cats; 
They lay all over him purring ; he wallowed 
In kittens, and like a dang soft coward 
He ran away leaving the house open, 
The cats in possession — there must 'a' been forty. 

[561 



He didn't have the nerve to drown them ; 

He liked them too well to give them away 

To homes where they'd been well taken care of; 

So one day he just up and ran away. 

I had to take a day off from harvesting 
And shoot those beasts ; they were starving. 
And he heard of it and sneaked back in the night, 
And went to farming again. After a while 
I kind of forgot he was a " softy," 
(We don't like that kind here in this country) ; 
But blast me, if I didn't pass his house 
Last week, and see a cat on the doorstep ! 



[57] 



SILENCE DAVIS 

There's the old Wesleyan church between the 

roads ; 
It stands in a little corner of land 
That Long-Bob Somerville gave to the church 
Before the War. It won't be standing long; 
The horse-shed rotted in the sills and fell 
Only last year ; and now it isn't safe 
To go up the old stairway to the bell 
Hung on timbers in the high, square steeple ; 
And the window-panes are falling out fast. 
We hold a Union Service there Sundays, 
But no one takes an interest in the church. 
I can look ahead and see it flat 
Some morning after a high West wind. 
City folks like to come and look at it. 
They call it " Georgian " ; I don't know 
Just what they mean. 

But I remember well 

The way the church used to look in war time. 
When we offered prayers for the men who went 
To fight to free the slaves down in the South, 
Fired by the Abolitionist preacher. 
Not many of the boys ever came back. 
Benjamin Putnam, who wrote poetry. 
Died at Cold Harbor, and Uncle Jeremiah 

[58] 



Was shot at Antietam. Solon came back. 

He fought at Gettysburg and went marching 

With Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, 

And never got a scratch during the war. 

And Erastus Sheffer got back limping, 

With one coat sleeve pinned up to the shoulder. 

He was a New York artillerj^man, 

Who loved his gun better than his kinfolk, 

And stuck by it to the end — fighting hard. 

We used to set boards along the windows. 

With holes bored in them for the tall candles. 

Every window was ablaze on the night 

Of the Emancipation Proclamation, 

When we all kneeled down with tears on our cheeks 

And thanked God for Abraham Lincoln. 

You've noticed that queer grave in the churchyard. 

It does look curious to a stranger 

To see a grave with two big monuments. 

There's a story about it — a long one. 

Sit down on the grass and you shall hear it ; 

It takes a long time to tell a story. 

For there's so much one must feel and conjecture. 

There must be a floating feeling round you 

That fills in the thin places you can't tell, 

And brings out all the truth that you don't know. 



[59] 



Silence Davis is buried there. 

She died in her youth, of hunger and hardship 

Folks said ; I say it was a broken heart. 

She was the only daughter of Nate Hills, 

A scholar and a gentleman-farmer. 

He wrote a book once and had it published, 

And he had a telescope in the garret 

And spent clear nights searching the heavens. 

Nate had an only daughter, tall, grey-eyed ; 

He called her that old-fashioned name, " Silence " ; 

And she bore it well, for she was quiet 

And womanly, sweet as a June lily, 

But stubborn, for her father's wilfulness 

Came down to her as an inheritance. 

In the first flush of her young womanhood 
She married a clod — a handsome fellow 
(If you can see beauty in flesh and eyes), 
Raised on Mormon Hill, where they count women 
Less than fat cattle. They used to trade them 
Till the Government stepped in and stopped it. 
One man traded his wife for a calf and a bridle. 
Another for a colt and a halter, 
And everybody changed round once in a while, 
So they said, — of course that is long ago ; 
But he came of that stock, and blood will tell. 
Zoph Davis was as wilful as a steer 
Out on fresh pasture. He wanted Silence 

[60] 



For his woman, and she would marry him 
And leave her father's comfortable home 
To live in a shack up on Mormon Hill. 

I'm not saying Zoph meant to be cruel : 

He didn't know what a gentle woman was like — 

Not her kind, all softness and sunshine ; 

He only knew the fierce kind of women 

Who could shoot and ride and starve with the men, 

Who defended themselves as the men did 

And asked no favors nor took any. 

His mother would have shot a man who struck her. 

He expected Silence to fight her way. 

But Silence faded and pined and sickened, 

And when her baby came she died gladly. 

And her father cursed Zoph, and brought her here 

And laid her in the old Hills burying plot. 

He set this headstone of Vermont marble. 

It reads: 

SILENCE 

THE BELOVED DAUGHTER 

OF 

NATHAN HILLS 

You see there is nothing on the headstone 

About her being married — not a word 

To show that she had gone away from home. 

[61] 



Zoph went away before the headstone was set. 
He worked in the Bark-woods the whole summer. 
When he came out, he went to the church-yard 
And saw the headstone and the inscription 
That Nate Hills had had cut in the marble. 
We never heard a word of him for a year. 
Folks thought that he was dead. Then there came 

word 
He had got a job at the Garnet Mines. 
Not long after that, he drove back in here 
And brought another headstone for his wife. 
He set it up close by the first one. 
It was Vermont marble — the same pattern — 
But the inscription ; that was different. 
You read it : 

SILENCE 

THE BELOVED WIFE 

OF 

ZOPHER DAVIS 



[62] 



FLINT 

I NEVER believed they were married lovers : 
He was such a hard man — and she was hard ; 
Both Presbyterians, and old-fashioned 
Enough to think that bodies can damn souls, 
And that original sin can shake us 
From the Tree of Life into perdition. 

I thought their marriage was just a bargain 
They had made because they thought it a duty. 
They never called each other by first names. 
'Twas always " Mr." and " Mrs," — stiff words 
For the breakfast table, year in and year out. 
But one could see they never flinched from life. 
They worked hard and brought up thirteen children. 
Most of them went to college : they believed 
The Lord commanded men to get knowledge. 
Abial, the eldest, became a preacher ; 
Ichabod went off somewhere engineering; 
Mary taught school ; now she's at a college 
Where they teach girls to be missionaries 
And send them out to heathen in China ; 
Bethuel is a doctor down in Utica. 
They're all off somewhere working out salvation, 
And the old folks live on in the farm house 
And use their religion as a ramrod 
To stiffen their spines, so they can hold out 

[63] 



Until death against all the natural 
Human happiness that they're so scared of. 

But I changed my mind about them last year. 
I had brought some candy up from the store. 
I stopped in at their house — neighbors were 

there — 
And passed the candy — just peppermint sticks 
With pink stripings — the kind that children like. 
Somehow I missed him when I passed it, 
And I had just enough sticks to go around 
Without him. Well, I thought nothing of it : 
A man don't set much store by candy — 
(I had forgot they felt it was a sin 
To waste money on such foolish notions 
As candy, so he hardly knew its taste,) 
I sat near the outside door behind them, 
And I saw her hand slip back of her chair 
And find his hand, while she kept on talking, 
And when it drew back he had the candy. 
She couldn't bear to have the little treat 
And feel that he was not sharing it too. 

It was a simple thing — but it held all 
The love we had thought they were missing. 
Their hardness was only a cloak — a mask 
To hide their rich treasure from the curious; 

[64] 



And I understood then why their children 
Had grown up like young trees, strong and lovely. 

Now I've a fondness when I'm teaming it 
For eating pink-striped peppermint candy; 
I think — when I'm munching along the road 
And flicking the heads of the timothy 
With my whip — " They loved one another — 
We were so blind ; they loved hard all the time. 
Their natures were flint ; there's bound to be fire 
When you strike flint. They poured out a great 

love 
Into life ; maybe that was the secret 
Old John Calvin tried so hard to teach us." 



[65] 



UNION BLUE 

At the last turn of the old logging road 
There stood the strangest kind of a house, 
Chinked in the ledge where the creek tumbled down 
Prom old Buck Mountain Pond. 'Twas like to fall 
With a good sharp gust of wind, and yet it stood 
So many years that now as I look back 
I feel the old house was not built with hands, 
That it had grown like fungus of the woods 
Out of some living spore cast there by chance, — 
It was so much a part of the wild loneliness. 
Grey roof, wet rafters, weatherbeaten sides. 
Rocks in the dooryard, only wild flowers growing 
Around the doorstep, — sweet fern, and that vine 
The children eat because it tastes like spice; 
And like the nesting partridge, it was hid 
By its own colors, for you could not see 
A house at first, but only rocks and trees. 
But then a door would open, and things stir 
That looked like tattered bark blown by the wind, 
And just a wisp of smoke would tell you soon 
That human folk were there, and kindled fires. 

Ben Hewitt and his wife lived there alone, 
They always kept a savage hunting dog 
That lay upon the floor and growled and growled 
Until you wondered if he was a dog 

[66] 



And not some mountain goblin summoned there 

Who voiced suspicion at your human blood. 

They had an only son, who went to war 

When old Ben volunteered in 'sixty-one. 

We knew that he was killed at Fredericksburg 

Before his father's eyes, and after that 

We thought Ben Hewitt's mind was not just right, 

For he had queer ideas of common things 

And he would sit and talk to you like this 

About the lightning, in a thunderstorm : 

" I know what lightning's made of — don't tell me ; 

I saw a ball burst right here in the yard, 

And it was full of shingle nails and things. 

And tin, and bolts, and Lord knows what a mess," 

He used to gather healing herbs and say : 
" You're foolish if you don't take hemlock sweats 
For fever and for all your shaking chills. 
And steep and drink a little hemlock tea; 
And if you're troubled some with darting pains, 
There's lung-weed over in the pasture lot, 
And Slippery Elm. These durn fool doctors go 
And give you devil's pills ; I cured a cancer once 
With nothing more than plain green plantain 
leaves." 



[67] 



Or he would talk on politics he'd read 

In last year's almanac, and gravely say: 

" There ar'n't no statesmen now ; they talk and 

talk — 
And sit around and don't do anything." 

Now somehow it got out around the town 
That Old Ben was a miser, and had kept 
His pension money in a bag there in the house 
For ten years running. So one stormy night 
Some roughs came there and gagged and tied his 

wife 
And trussed her in the corner like a sack, 
And opened the stove door and told old Ben 
That they would burn his feet unless he showed 
Where all his money was. They burned and cursed 
And left him well nigh dead ; he never walked 
For a whole year ; but not a word he said. 

One time he told me why he let those men 
Torture his flesh for money all the night. 
He had few savings — just a scanty hoard; 
But for long years he had a sacred place 
He kept his money. He was fond of me. 
And bade me look behind the stairway door 
And brins: what hung there over to his side. 



[68] 



It was a faded coat of Union Blue, 

With corporal's straps all tarnished with the 

years. — 
" It's Sonny's coat ; he died at Fredericksburg. 
And all these years I've kept my money there 
In his coat pocket — out of lonesomeness ; 
For every time I went to get a coin, 
I'd think of him when first he crept to me 
And, catching at my boots, pulled himself up 
And called out ' Dada.' He had yellow hair 
And bright blue eyes. His laugh was like the song 
The creek makes underneath that jutting rock. 
I built the house up here because I heard 
The sound one day when I bent there to drink. 
He grew up to my eyes, and when the war 
Took me, he wouldn't let me go alone, 
And went and volunteered, and we were off 
To fight the Rebs to make the black men free. 

" We fought together, and one night we lay 
Crouched down at Fredericksburg behind some sod, 
And he was tired with the long delay 
And fretted to be fighting. Some one said, 
* I dare you to get up and wave your hat.' 
He was a boy, remember, — young and rash. 
He stood straight up ; the waiting riflemen, 
Those Tennessee men, drew a bead on him 
And he fell down and never made a moan. 

[69] 



" It's mostly tatters now, the pocket tore 
A dozen times ; I always mended it. 
I couldn't let those robbers lay their hands 
On Sonny's coat. I'll have it laid at last 
Inside my coffin, when I come to die." 

When goodbyes came, I left him sitting there 
Thinking of Sonny by the dying fire : 
A bent old man with faded, rheumy eyes — 
Across his knees a coat of Union Blue, 



[70] 



THE SANE WOMAN 

" No, I'm not crazy, Doctor, I'm all right . . . 

" Whose business is it if I lock the door 

To the spare room? You couldn't stand that noise 

And work. If I stir round out here, 

Jingle the tins and clatter dishwashing, 

I can go all day without hearing it. 

" I get along all right through the day time . . . 
Perhaps you could do something for me nights. 
Yes, what you heard I told Mis' Peck is true : 
She walks out of her picture frame at night; 
I hear her stepping light around the house 
And laughing in the dark. 

" I'd laugh that way 

If I were she; Oh, I w^ould laugh and laugh . . . 
When I first came here as a second wife 
I hated the old picture on the wall 
Just as a young girl would, but Dana said 
His boys would think their father had forgot 
Their mother if we took the picture down. 
There in the picture they are little boys, — 
Five of them hanging on her plumped out arms, 
With shining faces and clean roundabouts. 
They were grown men-folks when I married him. 
But I said, ' Very soon I shall not care 

[71] 



About the picture hanging on the wall ; 

I shall not care/ and in wild make-believe 

I'd snatch a pillow tight up in my arms. 

The years went by . . . you see I have grown old, 

And he is old too; all day by the fire 

He sits and stares at the big picture there 

Of his first wife and her five little boys. 

" Since he's grown feeble I have sold the wool 

And yearlings and made sharp trades out at town. 

I'll *■ never want for anything,' you say — 

I never had anything, you mean to say. 

Men don't count women in their worldly lives, — 

They count their children, and their farms and 

stock ! 
They're like a river flowing — all these men — 
And if you haven't children you're no more 
Than driftwood floating on the river's breast, 
Flung in an eddy when the tide is full. 

" But I am strong ; there's something fierce in me 
That fights back, hungers, searches all the time: 
I'm stronger than she was, but she can laugh, — 
I cannot laugh, nor even shed a tear. 
You see I have grown old — look close at me. 
As she does; why, her eyes eat through 
My heart, and her laugh mocks my shrunken 
breasts. 

[72] 



" How could you think me jealous of the dead 

Or crazy? I shan't thank the meddling folk 

For telling tales to you to bother me. 

I lock the door just to shut out the noise. 

Here is the door key— Sh-h-h-h-h! I hear her 

now; 
Go in there, Doctor, and you'll understand." 



[73] 



THE KOAD 

I LAUGH when town-folk call the color " red " 
We painted barns and schoolhouses years back ; 
It isn't red at all, but old " York Brown." 
You'll find it cropping out here in the hills. 
Some ore is pure ; a man can take good oil 
And grind the rotted stone up fine and have 
A better paint than he can buy " below." 
I always thought the Lord made that brown paint 
To match the rusty Sumach bobs that grew 
Around all the schoolhouses in those days, 
Shading the woodsheds, reaching, peering in 
The windows, listening to the "A — B — Abs." 

Our schoolhouse stood close to the old Plank Road, 
And just beyond, where the bridge crossed the creek, 
A shanty road turned off into the woods. 
The wheel tracks were grown up with flowers and 

weeds. 
The ruts worn smooth, and where the horses' hoofs 
Once struck out sparks against the flinty rocks 
The jewel weed hung her spotted orange bells 
And saucy Black-Eyed Susans waved their heads. 

My mother told me I must never go 

Up on that road — a " bad woman lived there." 

" Mother, what is a bad woman?" I asked. 

[74] 



She answered : " She's a woman who forgets 

To go to church and mind the ways of God, 

And strange things happen — you are old enough 

To know this woman has a little girl 

And never had a husband : women who do that 

Are very wicked. You must not go there." 

I knew her name was Annie. No one said 

If she were old or young; I pictured her 

Some shriveled hag struck with a witch's blight, 

And yet she drew me, till I turned my feet 

And followed trembling up the weedy road. 

Three turns, and then a sunny clearing spread 

To hold a cottage and a Sugar Bush. 

I stopped dead still ; then all fear slipped from me. 

This was a house ; like other houses, too. 

There were glass windows and stout timbered doors ; 

There was a roof, a chimney just like ours, 

And from the banking Morning Glories climbed 

Over the clapboards, purple, blue and pink ; 

And tall Sweet William, such as mother had. 

Bordered the dirt path to the picket gate. 

I looked, and disappointment gnawed my heart: 

I knew no wickedness lived in that house. 

Down the dirt path there flashed a gleam of blue. 
A little girl ran out and caught my hand, 
And pulled me in the yard ; she was so glad. 

[75] 



Framed in the doorway sills her mother stood ; 
She had June roses twisted in her hair, 
And she was young, — younger than anything 
I've ever seen, " Hullo," she said ; 
" Perhaps you're hungry," and she brought a jar 
Of raisin cookies, took some out for me. 
Asked me my name, and if my mother sent 
Me there to ask if she were sick or well. 
I looked at her ; some tender, early bloom 
Of manhood touched me, a7id I lied to her 
To see her smile, and asked her to come down 
And see my new white calf; it seemed just fair 
That I should make up to her for the rest. 



[76] 



MARRIAGE 

It was a trap, I said, and we were caught 
Netted like two unwary, fledgling birds, 
And we must work and see life drifting on 
Out of youth's brilliance to old age and death ; 
Our bodies must grow bent, and mine must stir 
To newer lives in agonies undreamed. 
I would rebel, I said, — break all the bonds. 
No one had dared to whisper me the truth. 
My mother wept upon my wedding day. 
But she kept silence, kept the traitor pact. 
Had all the old conspired against the young, 
Wisdom set lures to snare young ignorance. 
And knowledge played the dunce to lead us on? 

My husband hushed me to his breast : " I know," 

Was all he said, and " Darling Heart, 

It has been just this way since time began. 

Are we such cowards that we fear to walk 

The selfsame road all other lovers tread? 

Shall I be cowardly before my toil ? 

Are you a coward in the face of pain ? 

I would bear all and more for just one hour 

Within your arms." 



[77] 



I sobbed : " I, too — I, too — 

Comfort me now, and I will take your hand 

And fight through life, for our love cannot fail." 



Now, only now, when I am near the end 

Of the long fight with life, I can think out 

What marriage means. I was so busy then 

With all my work I had not time to think. 

And there were children, six of them, to rear. 

I can see now that as time hurried on 

I lost myself within my own hard life. 

I was no more ; I hardly seemed, those years 

A single held-apart identity. 

Oh, it is curious how I came at last 

To love the ministry of daily needs ! 

My lover had forgotten his young love ; 
He only knew the comforts that I gave. 
As he fought for his place with other men 
And heaped the comforts for our growing brood. 
I was the fire that warmed him, everything 
That touched him, solace, food unto his soul, 
Servant to all his needs, as he to mine, 
And we two servants of the growing life 
That gathered round us. 



[78] 



It was hard at first ; 

I mourned a while ; I missed the loveliness 
Of the brief space of our new love's delight. 
Perhaps he missed it too : men are so proud 
They never tell their hurts like women folks. 
Now at the end, when all the work is done 
And he has gone, I somehow plainly see 
That marriage meant the losing of one's self 
Within another life, and other lives. 
I was a wife and I was mother too : 
That left no idle hours to fret and mourn. 
I gave as God must give — for He is lost 
Within His children's lives here on the earth. 



[79] 



" OLD SALT " 

" Old Salt " had been a pirate in his youth 
And sailed a clipper on the Carib seas; 
Grown old, his godless crew had marooned him 
Upon the Cocos Isles; he was picked up 
By a tramp trader and brought into port. 
Then he forsook the sea and kept an inn 
That held a record of unsavory brawls. 
There the old fearfulness that cowed his men 
Upon the sea, still compassed him around ; 
The ghostly tapping of his old peg leg. 
The empty eye-socket that glared at us, 
The crimson rag that bound his unkempt hair 
Conjured up memories of murdered men 
To us green landlubbers up in the hills. 

Yet when he stood before you in the flesh 
There was a look upon his face that seared 
The grosser passions like a sheeted flame. 
Mayhap you've seen a man that's coastwise bred 
Shut in the mountains pining for the sea. 
The wash of island tides within his ears. 
The whistling of the storms within his brain 
And hunger for adventure in his heart? 
There where the hills leap upwards to the sky, 
Blue overlapping blue in serried lines. 
He saw the tumbling hillocks of the sea 

[80] 



Breaking to leeward on a sunken shoal 
And felt the creaking timbers neath his feet. 

Before the fire, there poured the richest tune 
From his cracked throat : what wild adventure lay 
Beyond the spinning of the salt sea spume, 
What gold lay hid on the uncharted isles 
Beyond the Spanish Main, — the tune ran on 
Through seamen's jargon and coarse ribaldry, 

" The clipper's beams a-moaning, 
The combers curling in, 
The hawse pipes answering tvith a groan 
As comforting as sin. 

" With bow a-raking forward 
And 7nasts a-raking aft, 
We ratched against the heavy swells 
Until her timbers laughed. 

'^ Oh free and bold we sailed our way 
And lightly homeward bound; 
We drove the silly merchantmen, 
The crew we mostly drowned. 

" Oh light we rode the oily swell. 
The Rover's flag flung free. 
And Fd been on her, lad, today 
But a cut-throat ' Seventy-three ' 
[81] 



'' Hugged our heels in a tearing gale — 
My leg teas shot away; 
A squall blew up and stopped the chase, 
Or Fd not he here to-day. 

" We sheered along with tops'ls free 
And flaws a-bracing in, 
The bowsprit prancing to the stars. 
The swells a-hreaking thin. 

" Hull down, the frigate dove from sight 
Warped by a westering wind; 
Her gear was tattered by our shot. 
Our wheel had gone dead blind.'^ 

They buried " Old Salt " up there in the hills, 

Back of the Inn, upon a meadow slope 

Where in the summer time the rising wind 

Mimics the waves in swells of timothy. 

I feel his bones — unquiet in the mold — 

Are aching for the stinging, spitting sea, 

To lie on some drowned hulk within the deep 

Where bones of seamen watch o'er pirate gold, 

Sewn up with sea weed, till the Last Trump sounds. 

His hoard of silver bought a velvet bed 

For his last sleep. How could those landsmen 

know 
An old tarpaulin would have made him glad. 

[82] 



SIMPLES 

If you are unskilled in the healing art, 
Weeds are just weeds — untoward, ugly things 
That choke smooth garden lands, and frowsily 
Bedeck the lanes, and pierce the tender flesh 
With burrs and daggers, — malice aforethought 
Of Nature's brain flung out in wantonness 
To ease the bubbling ichors of her blood. 



But if you know the Simpler's kindly skill. 

Weeds are the " leaves for healing " given to man 

In a lost Eden. Once out in the West 

I knew an Indian medicine-man, 

Who taught me how to heal with prairie weeds ; 

He told me that there grew upon the earth 

A weed to heal each pain of mortal flesh. 

There's Plantain, with its shining, ribbed green leaf 
And strong, white rootlets clutching the firm sod — 
A common weed, in truth ; to me, a boon. 
Break plantain leaves and bind them on the skin 
And it shall grow as smooth as any child's. 

Solomon's Seal twines in the virgin loam 
Upon the little hillocks in new land ; 
And in the hollows Feverwort and Spurge 

[83] 



And Asthma-weed, and that tall purple flower, 
Queen of the Meadow, and the white Boneset 
That Indians always call the " Sweating Plant." 

They all are Simples. If I love one best, 

It is the Yarrow. Once long, long ago. 

Before the battered walls of windy Troy, 

Achilles plucked the Yarrow for his men 

And stanched their wounds with its narcotic ooze. 

The Lady Slipper, with her rose-veined hood, 
Springs from a root that pours forgetfulness. 
And there are many plants that bring deep sleep 
And stranger madness — if we use them ill. 
Their roots are gravid with dark potencies 
Mystery on mystery of dripping sap 
That can hold back the breath through the pale 

hours 
When Death tugs hard to break the slender cord. 
But if one break a leaf or root o'er much. 
Death is their gift : there is great magic there. 

And every herb and weed bears its own sign : 

A Simpler reads them like an open page. 

Dig up each root, pull out the stalks ; somewhere 

The sign is hiding — planispheres writ small. 

If you should doubt, — why, pull the Bloodroot's 

stalk. 
Or dig a Mandrake — if your heart quake not. 

[84] 



There are sweet odors that have healing power. 
The crushed leaves of the plumy wild Horsemint 
Shaken in close rooms at the dead of night 
Will fight against a fever's burning breath, 
And conjure dreams that ease the clouded mind. 

Healall will cleanse the humors of the blood 
And make it mild as the soft springtime rain ; 
And the Field Primrose in her yellow silk 
Gives balm that age to youth can quick renew; 
And Bruisewort plucked in autumn draws the pain 
From out old wounds. 

But I have never found 

The Magic Herb that grows somewhere on earth. 

It is not Vervain with its lancet leaves 

And purple salvers lifted up to heaven ; 

Nor Blue Vervain that's called " the Simpler's 

joy " ; 
Nor Holy Thistle of St. Benedict, 
Nor Lion's Foot that cures the serpent's sting. 
I shall go seeking till my days are done 
The Simple that shall ease the troubled soul 
And mend the broken armor of the brain. 
The Master Herb that, bruised, shall cure death, — 
I know it grows — perhaps just close at hand — 
One of the common weeds of barren soil. 



[85] 



COUNTRY TRAGEDY 

There are great tragedies in the country. 

That torture the simple, kindly souls 

And leave them broken, like gaunt forest trees 

Felled by a tempest. They live on, dreaming 

On Sundays of the " Sweet Fields of Eden," 

When their aching hearts find brief solace 

In honest Christian doctrine that's certain 

Of the " Last Day " and the Resurrection. 

Through their faith they come close to a " Friend," 

And after all's said what more can there be 

For men here or in the hereafter? 

Thus they are comforted of gaping wounds; 

Time is kind, the vine of Forgetfulness 

Covers the barren soil of their minds. 

It is well with these ; one can understand 
And see growth and great renunciation. 
The hopelessness is in the tragedy 
Of those who are not fine enough to sorrow ; 
Who cannot feel repentance or regret ; 
Plastic only to the deep-grained instinct 
Of survival. There are many of these 
Who are not wise enough to be sinners. 
And the elemental forces of life 
Pluck them up out of sport and play toss-ball, 
And they pass through the game like clods of earth, 
And fall untouched, unhurt, unawakened. 

[86] 



LUMBER-JACK TALES AND BALLADS 



THE OLD LUMBER-JACK IN EXILE 

Yes, that's a pine — a York State pine. 
It seems lost down here in this stubbly brush 
Of low scrub-pine that grows along the bars. 
I'm always lonesome for that tree down here, 
The friend I wintered with up in the North ; 
White pine, with seamed, grey-green smooth bark 
And slender needles soft and delicate — 
The cones so long and smooth. If you had lived 
When you were young in Northern lumber camps 
You'd love white pine ; I call it York State pine. 
But it grows up and down the Eastern coast 
Mixed in with other pine, yellow and pitch. 
And loblolly, that's down here on the dunes. 
They're not so fine, not friendly kinds of trees. 
Their needles are too stiff to bend and sing 
When the wand whistles, like a York State pine, 
And croon above the rafters in the night 
As soft and mournful as the sound of rain 
That strips the frost-touched leaves in early fall. 

I can't forget where first I came to love 
White pine in our rough Northern lumber camps. 
'Twas on the Sacondog ; ( we called it that 
But Sacondaga is the rightful name.) 
If you will look some day on the State map 
And find just where the Sacondog turns west 

[89] 



In Warren county and then shoots straight down 
Through Hamilton; it was in there I spent 
Ten winters in the woods with lumber gangs, 
Hauling pine markets to the river bank 
To float down to the Hudson in the Spring 
When the ice left the river. 

Why is it * i 

The old life vanishing from field and hill 

Now in my memory seems so beautiful? 

When I look back, it was a rough, wild life, 

Yet it was hardy, wholesome, sweet and clean. 

That life has gone. You know the Big-Rock Bend 

Where the old Sacandog cuts through the gorge? 

There was a lumber camp as wild as sin 

Built up in there some forty years ago. 

Log houses and log bunk sheds for the men, 

A few framed dwellings primed with ochre paint, 

A ramshackle hotel, a general store 

Where we drew credit from the " Company," 

A big " Bark '' tannery, bridged on a creek, 

Puffed spits of steam, as the log teams drove by. 

We peeled the hemlock in the Summer time 
For tan-bark ; hemlock's prime to peel in June. 
With a sharp spud in those days I could peel 
And stack — if I was fresh — a cord a day. 

[90] 





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1^ 



Around the camp the timbered hills rimmed up 

Like dark green clouds fringed low against the sky. 

At sunrise they lay black against the dawn ; 

At sunset they were painted like the sky. 

Back in the hills — some five on to ten miles — 

The shanties stood, where the log choppers lived. 

They chopped and limbed the logs; we skidded 

them, 
Then " teamed it " down the river, logs chained 

high 
To our bob sleds. The roads were glare with ice — 
A log road wasn't much — just a cut trail — 
But we had horses then ; they'd brace and slide 
Bad hills on all four feet. One time I fell 
Before my load to almost certain death. 
Old Nell, my off mare, jumped clean over me 
Sideways into the snow, and stopped the load. 
I tell you, I took care she had her oats 
When I put up my horses for the night. 
We used chains on the runners for our brakes. 
Sometimes they wouldn't work on the steep grades, 
And when the load got going 'twas a run 
With death till we struck level down below. 
I'd swing the reins and yell " Giddap " like mad 
At my old bays. We always beat it out 
And got down safe, although it made us puff. 



[91] 



The log-road's gone ; a year ago they built 
A spanking brand-new auto road in there. 
The camp's gone too ; you'd never know the place. 
It all burned down ; you'll find just here and there 
A few logs tumbling down among the brush 
To tell you that folks lived there long ago. 
They shipped the tannery off somewhere else ; 
The hemlock bark gave out. They use oak now, 
But hemlock is the best. 

There's nothing left 

To mark the place but one poor, creaking shack. 

An old man lives there just to sell soft drinks 

To auto-folk who come in summer time. 

Upon the hills the hemlock and white pine 

Are growing fast, for the State owns the land. 

I never cared for any tree that grew 

Except a pine ; they're leaves and boughs and bark. 

But pine is friendly, I went chopping once, 

And never put an axe into a pine 

But that I hated to ; it seemed alive. 

And I tell you when I am laid away 

That I don't want a marker over me 

Of marble, or some other fancy stone ; 

If I can have my way, 'twill be a pine. 



[92] 



JIMMIE DOHERTY 

Years ago a bitter feud raged between the Irish Catholics and 
the Protestant Irish in certain sections of the North Woods. 
When the Protestants condescended to attend the " wake " of 
an Irish Catholic, it was a tribute to the personal worth of the 
man. 

There's a " wake " for Jimmie Doherty in the Bunk- 
house Saturday night. 
The Protestants are coming — they knew that he 

was right. 
We're going to keen him till the dawn — he came 

from County Clare — 
And send the word across the sea to them that's 

over there. 
He froze to death on Thursday night a-crossing 

through the snow 
That drifted in on Newcomb Lake when the wind 

began to blow. 
He'd been to Newcomb Corners a-drinking hard 

and fast, 
And never thinking that the night might prove to 

be his last. 
He made the fat bartender roar with some old 

Shanty lie, 
And treated all around three times, the best that 

he could buy; 
And packed a sup o' whiskey to bring us Shanty 

men, 

[93] 



And started out to cross the Lake; the clock had 

just struck ten. 
He must 'a' took a drop too much ; he never reached 

the shore; 
He walked in circles till the Lake looked like a 

threshing floor. 
Oh, cold it was, and bitter, the gale that blew that 

night ; 
There was no moon to guide him, nor stars to give 

their light. 
We found him in the morning with the dawn-light 

on his brow; 
His face was white as any saint's and drifted with 

the snow. 
We found him kneeling peacefully, his hands upon 

his breast 
As if he'd bowed to say a prayer, or get a breath 

and rest ; 
And the " wee drap " he carried to warm our Shanty 

joys 
He'd never touched nor drawn the cork : he'd kept 

it for the " boys." 

We're " waking " Jimmie Doherty in the Bunk- 
house Saturday night; 
We're going to keen him till the sun swims up in 
. . . broad daylight. 

[94] 



There'll be enough for everyone — the boys have 

been so free — 
And Big Tim Cole is coming, and Michael Gog- 

gerty. 
We'll wake him as a man should be who came from 

County Clare, 
And raise a keen that maybe'll stir the auld sod 

over there. 



[95] 



CONSERVATION 

(The old Lumber- jack returns to the North Woods) 

I WENT back home last year to the North Woods — 
Up where I lumbered nearly fifty years ago ; 
It all seemed new and strange and different. 
There were the broad, new roads with white guard 

rails, 
Slashed in the hills we lumber-jacks stripped bare. 
It looks to me there'll be as much again 
Good pine as we cut down, in just ten years : 
Not like the whopping burnt-out stumps you see 
Half charred among the stubbly underbrush; 
That's " first-growth," gone forever. You won't see 
Pine that it took four hundred years to grow 
In the North Woods again, but the new crop will be 
As good as the old " second-growth " we cut. 

There's miles and miles of the North Woods I knew 
Blindfolded years ago ; now it looks strange — 
Like some new country. It's a " Park," they say. 
The State has taken it and bought the farms, 
But farmers can stay on, and campers come 
If they obey the rules of forestry 
The State has posted up all through the Woods, 
And cut for firewood only fallen trees 
Or the old creaking scrubs with crumbling hearts 
Like to crash down in the first winter gale. 

[96] 



They have a name for what they aim to do : 
'Tis " conservation," sort of saving up 
The woods and headwaters up in the hills 
For children's children : — I join hands with it. 

When I had hoofed a bit, I struck old Factorytown. 
The factory's tumbled down some sixty year. 
But the town stuck there, rooted 'twixt cross roads. 
The land was part of the John Burnam grant. 
He had two townships granted by the State 
In early days, if he would settle them 
With immigrants — or so folks always said. 
Many a time I've heard the old men tell 
How he took beechnuts down to where ships land, 
And spread them out and said, " Now come with 

me," 
To starved out folk from County Antrim way. 
" There isn't gold around these foreign parts. 
But there's rich grain — buckwheat ; it grows as 

large 
As these few kernels I've brought down with me." 

They took his land and held the grant for him 
And nearly starved the first year they were there, 
Then prospered fairly. They were stern, grim 

folk — 
Protestant Irish — and they toiled and made 
Those mountain valleys blossom like the rose. 

[97] 



You never saw such farms — Old Summerville 
Raised tons of rye and oats on the new land, 
And grew so rich he took it in his head 
To go to Kansas; he went on out there, 
And grasshoppers ate everything he had. 

'Twas there the Irish weavers, yearning back 
To their old home, dammed up the brawling creek 
And built a factory close beside the road 
To weave fine calico. It didn't pay. 
But after the old looms were taken out 
The name stuck fast — the place was Factorytown. 
I think you'll find still in old houses there 
Some scraps in patchwork of that calico, 
With little roses running on buff ground. 
But mostly it has gone the way of everything. 
The Factorytown you know forgets the spot 
The old dam crossed the creek; the country's 
changed. 

And folks have changed ; I hear a Polack built 
A shack up on the old Gid Stackhouse place ; 
And Johnson's store — a German owns it now 
And keeps it neat and all methodical. 
I liked it better with the sheet-iron stove 
And clutter of old barrels and sacks and things. 
And strings of apples hanging down from hooks, 
And knitted socks and leggings on the floor, 

[98] 



And nothing ever quite in the same spot. 

It was a kindly place; we lumber-jacks 

Always came there to sit on pay-day nights, 

To gather round the stove and hear the yarns 

Old Johnson read us from the Weekly News. 

The stove would get red hot, then we'd push back 

And talk and roar. 

The store's so spick-span now 

A man don't dare to sit there any more 

And talk. He buys and hears the clink 

Of silver in the new cash register : 

Bill Johnson kept coin in a leather bag. 

He had a bit of skin-flint blood in him, 

But somehow it seemed right to give his price. 

If 'twas too high. You thought maybe he'd had 

An extra tax, or that someone had died 

Among his kinfolk. If you couldn't pay 

He'd " trust " ; they said he lost a lot that way. 

" So much for so much " never troubled us. 

The farmers were the misers in those days : 

A lumber-jack spent money like a lord 

While his pay lasted: 'twas the fun we craved. — 

Oh, life was kind of human in those days ! 

They've built a new hotel in Factorytown ; 

The old one rotted down upon its sills. 

A smart Jew bought the dust heap for a song, 

[99] 



And put a new one up ; the white State road 

Runs past it and the autos toot and screech 

Their horns through Factorytown now every day, 

And the farm-horses aren't scared any more. 

I like the new hotel; it's plumb sure fine, 

But it's not home to me like the old one 

With its round pillars and the bright green blinds. 

I always thought the White House looked like it 

Before I saw it, but somehow, to me. 

It made me think of old George Washington 

And Valley Forge and wars with Indians. 

The country's changing fast ; I wonder why 
The State plans " conservation " all the time, 
And yet forgets the most important thing — 
To just conserve the old America 
We knew. It's slipping — slipping every day. 
And we won't long remember what we've been. 

The timber's growing up so fast again ; 
The mountain streams are all a-bursting full; 
The State is sending seeds and bulletins 
To tell the farmers how to grow their crops. 
And foreigners come tumbling in pell-mell 
To do it all. It kind of makes me sad; 
I'm not-at-home up here; my friends have gone — 
The folks that first came over and became 
Americans. I know I'm just dead wrong. 

[100] 



Men laugh at me and say the new folks here 

Will be the same. I know it may be so, 

But something's gone that never can come back. 

I can't lay hands on it, no more can you ; 

But it's still in the woods. When I get blue 

I go and sit beside an old skidway 

And shut my eyes : far of the supper horn 

Blows from the Shanty, and I hear the thump 

Of green logs falling on tlie hemlock skids, — 

The tapping of the axes far aivay. 

It don't stay long. I stretch, and light my pipe, 

And watch a red squirrel chittering on a bough. 



[101] 



JAMES McBRIDE 

An imitation of the numerous Slianty Ballads that were 
composed by Lumber-jaclvS and River-drivers to commemorate 
notable events in their lives. Forty or fifty years ago a great 
many of these ballads were composed and sung to old tunes 
and also to new ones made up like negro spirituals on the 
spur of the moment. Set down in cold type, these ballads often 
had the curious metrical awkwardness of " James McBride " 
which made them difficult to read. They were composed to be 
sung and only to the accompaniment of the reeling Shanty 
tunes, did they rise to full artistic effectiveness. 

" Now who will cross to the other side 

On a raft?" the young Boss cried. 

" The old North River is boiling brown 

And the bridge is battered down. 

Now who will cross and risk his life, 

Who has no child or wife? 

On the Black Rock there on the other side 

Is our Foreman, James McBride. 

" He rode a log from the upper jam 

Below the timber dam ; 

It splintered up on the Black Rock here 

And flung him high and clear. 

The river is rising fast tonight; 

If you wait for broad daylight, 

You will not see on the other side 

Your Foreman, James McBride." 

[102] 



Now two men stepped to the young Boss's side ; 

" We will man the raft," they cried. 

'Twas big Pat Heeney who stepped out there, 

And the Frenehy, Joe Le Clare. 

" We'll ride the waves, the rocks we'll clear. 

And our hearts shall not know fear. 

And we'll bring you back from the other side 

Our Foreman, James McBride." 

We watched the raftsmen steer their way 

To where the Black Rock lay; 

We watched the Foreman wave his hand 

And show them where to land; 

But just as they reached the slippery rock 

The waves gave them a shock. 

And they could not get to Black Rock's side 

And their Foreman, James McBride. 

The waters carried them far away 

Where the rapids fierce did play, 

They waved their hands and called " goodbye " 

Where the waters foamed so high; 

But though they were carried far away, 

The raft by the Rock did stay; 

We saw it hang to the Black Rock's side. 

Near the Foreman, James McBride. 



[103] 



Young James McBride was a raftsman bold, 

Who feared not waves nor cold; 

He jumped and made as firm a stand 

On the raft as on dry land. 

He steered his way through the rapids there 

And round him he did stare, 

Till the Shanty boys were pulled to the side 

By their Foreman, James McBride. 

Now all you brave young Shanty men 
Who want to " drive " again ; 
Now all you fine young Shanty boys 
Who know a raftsman's joys, — 
Remember those two lads so brave 
Who steered their friend to save; 
Remember the man, the Shanty's pride. 
Our Foreman, James McBride. 



[104] 



SINGING SAM 

When I was lumbering up on Thirteenth Lake, 

Old " Singing Sam " was " greaser " on our job. 

A " greaser " is a camp cook's handy man 

Who washes dishes and does all odd tasks 

Peels the potatoes, cleans up after grub, 

And gets kicked round the camp by everyone. 

Sometimes he is a crippled lumber-jack 

Who got hurt in the woods, or some poor fool. 

Or often a Canuck with Frenchy ways 

And he just gets his board and nothing more. 

But Singing Sam was all plain Yankee blood; 

I think he was a little soft or queer. 

He had a knack for fiddling, and a voice 

And memory for every song he heard. 

And there were songs he sang he'd never heard, 

They weren't set down in any music book. 

He used to say, when he tramped up and down 

The woods, there was a wild woman who came 

And fiddled for him under old gnarled trees 

And taught him songs that no one ever knew. 

When we were turning in around the fire. 
Filling our pipes and feeling at our ease. 
We'd call him in to get his fiddle out 
And sing a tune before we all bunked in. 

[105] 



He had a fiddle that he made himself, — 
Leastwise the most of it. When it was new 
A man had smashed it in a bar-room fight, 
And it was thrown out on the rubbish heap; 
And Sam had picked it up and whittled out 
The neck and sounding board from maple wood 
And seasoned it a while, then stretched the strings, 
And 'twas as good as new. 

How Sam could play! 

They sometimes sent for him from miles away 

To fiddle for a dance. He'd play all night. 

With one eye cocked up wide, the other drooped 

As if he saw the music in his head. 

I never heard another fiddler play 

" The Devil's Dream " one half as well as Sam, — 

Or all those hornpipe tunes, and reels and jigs. 

In those days all the Shanties had their songs ; 
The lumber- jacks made new ones every year 
About something that happened at the camp. 
Our Shanty Boss was William Anderson. 
We made a song near twenty verses long; 
It started out wuth something of this kind : 

My name, 'tis Billie Anderson, 
I'll have ye for to know; 
They put me in the corn field 
To scare away the crow. 
[106] 



Oh, lock-oon-ge-aye, lock-oon-ge-aye, 
Lock-oon, lock-oon, lock-oon-ge-aye, 
Whack-ful diddle-ful di-do. 

Another one we called " The Shanty Boy " ; 
It set us thinking of the girls back home. 

As I walked out one evening 
As the sun was going down, 
I walked into a place 
Called Crinkling Town. 

I heard two girls conversing 
As slowly I passed by; 
One said she loved a farmer's son, 
The other a Shanty Boy. 

Oh, the one that loved the farmer's son 
These words I heard her say : 
" The reason why I love him — 
At home with me he'll stay. 

" He'll stay at home all winter ; 
Not lumbering will he go; 
And when the springtime it comes on, 
His lands he'll plant and sow." 

And Ave would cheer when he came on to this, 
About the girl who loved the Shanty Boy : 

" Oh, how I love my Shanty Boy, 
Who goes out in the fall; 
He is both strong and hearty. 
And able to stand a squall. 
[107] 



" How happy I'll receive him 
In the spring when he comes home; 
His money free he'll share with me, 
While your farmers' sons have none." 

He had one song about some " Frenchy Joe " 
Who got drowned river-driving in a jam. 

" Oh, Joey wasn't handsome, 

But Joey he was tall; 

And we called him Old Joe Muffereau, 

The Bully o' Montreal." 

There was another song he used to sing, 

(That one was written down in an old book) ; 

It was about a woman who was wild 

And hid her lover in a big tea-chest. 

And then the husband comes and takes the chest 

Oh, they picked up the chest 

And they lugged it along. 

And they hadn't gone o'er half the ground 

Afore they sat down to rest. 

And says one to the other: 

Think the devil's in the chest — 

Tum-a-raddle-faddle-daddle 

Tum-a-raddle-f addle-day. 

They opened up the chest. 
Right there before them all 
There lay the little tailor. 
Like a piggy in a stall. 
I'll take you down to China, 
[108] 



And I'll trade you off for teaj 
I'll not have you round 
Making trouble for me. 
Tum-a-raddle-faddle-daddle 
Tum-a-raddle-f addle-day. 

And sometimes Sam would sing " The Cumberland," 
And our eyes smart as we thought on the thing ; 
And all join in when we came to the lines : 

Slowly they sank in Virginia's dark waters; 
Their faces on earth shall be seen nevermore. 

And sometimes we would have him sing " James 
Bjrd " : 

Listen to me, sons of Pleasure, 

And ye daughters, too, give ear. 

You a sad and mournful story 

As was ever told shall hear: 

Hull, you know, his troops surrendered 

And defenseless left the west; 

Then our forces quick assembled 

The invader to resist. 

Oh, I could go on telling you all day 
The songs he picked up somehow, here and there. 
He was a cheerful fool, and after all 
We missed him like a brother when he died. 
He left a paper with a bit he'd saved 
To hire some music for his funeral. 
We sent out fifty miles down to " The Falls " 
And hired a big brass band to come up here. 

[109] 



They wore red coats and horse tails on their heads, 
And when we laid old Singing Sam away 
They stood around the grave and played the tune 
He used to play when we bunked in at night. 

There's a land that is fairer than day, 
And by faith we can see it afar, 
Tor the Father waits over the way 
To prepare us a dwelling place there. 

In the sweet bye-and-bye 

We shall meet on that beautiful shore; 

In the sweet bye-and-bye 

We shall meet on that beautiful shore. 



[110] 




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< 



NANCE HILLS 

A LUMBER CAMP IDYLL 

The lumber camps were lonely years ago. 
I've heard my mother tell how many a time, 
When she was " keeping Shanty " years ago 
In the North Woods, cooking three meals a day 
For twenty men on Morgan lumber jobs, 
That four months would go by, and she'd not see 
Another woman, and she would grow wan 
And half forgetful out of loneliness. 
And have strange fancies coming and start quick 
If icicles fell down from off the eaves; 
And if a panther howled down in the swamp 
She'd go and bar the door, although she knew 
'Twould never come into the clearing there. 
And then she'd always say, " 'Twas not so bad 
In later years, for then I had the boys 
Playing around to keep me company, 
And never went clean crazy like Nance Hills, 
Who kept the Byrd Pond Shanty at ' The Forks.' 
'Twas good six miles away as the crow flies 
Across the cedar swamp to reach Byrd Pond, 
Yet Nance would often tramp the trail and come 
And sit with me what time she had to spare. 
And play with you an hour with blocks and things 
When you were little. And one day she said : 

[111] 



" ' I'm not the same since little Jimmie died ; 
You see, he was the only one I had. 
I ache somewhere; I think it's in my heart, 
And I've steeped herbs, but still the pain don't go. 
When I went home last year, I told Mis' Tripp, 
And she said : " Sho, don't worry about that ; 
I've felt that way now, years and years ago 
When I was young and lost a little child. 
It's habij-fever; when you've lost your own. 
Or they've been grown up for a heap of years, 
Or sometimes when you're just sick and alone, 
The spell comes on ; you sit and ache and ache 
And don't know rightly where. Sometimes it 

seems 
Your heart is jumping right up in your throat, 
And other times as if a lump of lead 
Lay on your breast, and you have crazy dreams 
Of babies ; and sometimes in broad daylight 
You see one come and play round on the floor, 
And food don't taste, and you can't even cry ; 
But always you know somehow what you want, 
And feel soft fingers clutching at your breast. 
And all night long a head upon your arm. 
That's ^ baby-fever ' ; it drives women mad." 



[112] 



" She sat a time, and then she spoke again : 
^ I've hoped and hoped since little Jimniie died — ' 
Then I just bustled out and stirred the fire 
And made her drink a good hot cup of tea. 

" One day I heard our ' marker ' laugh and say, 
* They've got a baby over at " The Forks." ' 
And I said, ' No, I haven't heard of it.' 
And he said, ^ Yep, it's so, for I looked in : 
There was a cradle rocking on the floor.' 

" ' Poor thing,' I said ; ' she must have had a time 
Without a woman 'round to care for her ; 
I must go over there the first fair day.' 
Next day I saddled our old skidding horse 
And strapped a blanket on, and rode the trail 
Through Cedar Swamp and came down to ' The 
Forks.' 

" Nance met me at the Shanty door ; her face 
Was sunshine. ^ Sh-h-h,' she said, ' he's gone to 

sleep. 
Take off your shawl ; your mittens are all stiff ; 
I'll thaw them out; sit down and warm yourself.' 
We sat down by the stove and talked and talked, 
And all the while she stitched and laughed away 
And showed me fixings such as women make. 

[113] 



" I asked to see the baby and Nance said, 

* If you don't mind today, I'll let him sleep, 

For he was sick and fretted in the night.' 

I thought 'twas queer I couldn't look at him. 

But something in her face kept my tongue still. 

I rode off home and she stood watching me 

Out of the clearing. I can see her now, 

With her red hair wrapped in a bright blue shawl ; 

She looked like some old picture I had seen 

I think now rightly in a Cath'lic Church ; 

They're full of pictures and of idols too. 

" The snow was deep that year ; I couldn't go 
Until Spring came again, on the swamp trail. 
And by that time I'd heard no one had seen 
The baby that was over at ' The Forks.' 
They couldn't get a word out of Nance's man. 
He'd say black oaths whenever they quizzed him. 
But when Nance was alone — a man had watched — 
She'd bring the baby from her own bunk-room 
And coddle it, and nurse it at her breast. 
But no one ever heard it make a cry. 

" One day when the Spring freshets gullied out 
The old log roads, Jim Hills came riding in. 
' Can you come over? Nance is awful sick,' 
He said as soon as I had let him in. 
I said I could, and got on up behind. 

[114] 



We had to walk the horse through ankle slush, 

And when we got there Nance was awful sick, 

And wild with fever. ^ Land,' said I, ' what's this? 

She needs a woman ; let me look at her.' 

And when I made her easy, I went out 

To tend the baby, for I saw a crib. 

You won't believe 'twas true: I turned the quilt 

And saw a baby made of cloth and rags — 

A poor rag doll that she had dressed and nursed 

And made believe with to her starved out heart. 

I stared at it and lifted up the thing, — 

I'd swear that it was warm — and then I screamed 

And let it drop, for somehow something moved 

Just like a baby moves, right in my hands. 

And then I put it back, for Nance cried out. 

And I heard Jim come blundering in the house. 

" He saw me by the crib and said shamefaced : 

' I couldn't stop her ; so I held my tongue.' 

' Of course,' I said ; then Nance screamed out again, 

And I went out and put the kettle on 

To have hot water in a little while. 

" She slept at last, and nestling by her side 
I laid her baby — the real living one 
That came to answer that old craving need 
That's deep in women. When the wind blew in 
The chinks between the logs, I slipped away 

[115] 



And brought her old blue shawl to wrap her in 
Against the cold. Then Jim came tip-toe soft. 
' She's gone to sleep ; don't you wake her,' I said. 
*■ I won't/ he whispered ; then he turned to me : 
' She looks like someone, but I don't know who — 
I think my mother, but I don't just know.' 

" Just then we heard the log chains clank outside. 
The men had come ; the skidding horses raced 
Down to the barn ; the kitchen door banged wide ; 
' Hullo,' a big voice called ; ' say, where's the 
grub?'" 



[116] 



RIVER DRIVING 

RiVEE driving on the Sacondog, 
Riding on a slippeiy log, 
Sleeping in a frozen bog — 
My girVs waiting for me. 

Hard-boiled eggs three times a day, 
Wet as beavers we hit the hay. 
Not much sleep but good big pay — 
My girl's waiting for me. 

Big French Joe and I went out 
To break the jam ; I heard him shout : 
^'^ Prenez garde/' and the jam went out — 
My girl's waiting for me. 

Big French Joe, the logs drowned him; 
He'd no chance to fight and swim. 
Logs jammed up to the river's rim — 
My girl's ivaiting for me. 

His girl come to me and cry, 
" If he's dead, then I shall die ; 
'Ma Petite/ he used to sigh." — 
My girl's waiting for me. 



[117] 



We will find him down below, 
Bound the bend where the water's slow, 
Floating with his " pike " in tow — 
My girl's waiting for me. 

'' Ma Petite " will wring her hand 

When we scrape the yellow sand 

And lay him by the river strand. — 

My girl's tvaiting for me. 

One more night and one more day, 
The logs will reach the river bay; 
I'll skin off these togs, and — say — 
My girVs icaiting for me. 



[118] 



MAKY TAMAHAW 

She wore a bright red ribbon in her hair, 

Little Mary Tamahaw, 

Seventh daughter of old Charlie Tamahaw 

And his squaw. 

She was like a lily pale and fair, 

Like a golden lily, for her skin 

Never reddened with the Indian stain, 

Never coarsened with the wind and rain. 

She was silent, wouldn't talk to us 

When we teased or tried to make a fuss 

When we came to buy the moccasins 

That her mother cut from the moose skins ; — 

Only sat and smiled, and smiling slid 

Out of sight beneath the furs and hid. — 

Little Mary Tamahaw, 

Seventh daughter of old Charlie Tamahaw 

And his squaw. 

City folks came, coaxed her far away 
" Down below " to New York town to stay ; 
Gave her play-houses and costly things, 
Shetland ponies and some bright gold rings, 
Eibbons that she wanted. She was glad 
For a while, then something made her sad. 
She was lonely for the old North River 
[119] 



For the sunset flames that leap and quiver 
In the sky when dusk of night is falling? 
Did she hear the grey mist-spirits calling? 
No one ever knew; 

Only saw her life-stream going — going — 
Like a weary river flowing — flowing. 

In a palace on Fifth Avenue, 
Where the walls were painted every hue, 
Where the rain could never drip and seep 
Down the gilded walls, she fell asleep, 
Broken, like a springtime lily golden. 
Plucked from out the forest gray and olden- 
Little Mary Tamahaw, 

Seventh daughter of Old Charlie Tamahaw 
And his squaw. 



[120] 



SABEAL 

Sabeal, an old Indian trapper who lived years ago on the 
shore of Thirteenth Lake, was murdered — so the story goes — 
by a lumberman who coveted his hoard of gold. Since that 
time the curious noises made by the wind under the ice in 
winter are attributed to the spirit of the old Indian, who is 
said to haunt the lake. When the wailing shrieks rise from 
the frozen lake on windy winter nights superstitious folk tell 
the youngsters : " It is old Sabeal crying for his gold." As 
a matter of fact the wind cutting through a gap in the moun- 
tains manages to create suction under the ice and curious 
whistling shrieks rise from the airholes when the wind gets 
free sweep of the lake. 

You'll wonder, if you go to Thirteenth Lake 
In winter when the ice is hard and clear, 
At the strange noises you will hear at night 
When the wind blows. A wildcat's scream, you'd 

say, 
Or some man driven crazy Avith black fear. 
In winter when the Northwest wind blows hard, 
Somehow it gets in under the thick ice 
And whistles through each airhole down the lake, 
And folks will say — unless you pin them down — : 
" That's old Sabeal a-crying for his gold." 
I'll tell the story — yes, I'll fill my pipe. 

Some lumberjacks can love a skidding horse 

Better than humans, or a big log team 

They winter with — whv, you could call some 'jacks 

[121] 



Hard names and they would take them as a joke. 
But say their horses weren't as good as those 
Another shanty stabled, you'd strike fire. 
There's shanty boys who'll coddle a pet pipe, 
Or chewing plug, or some old fiddle string 
They tune up in the bunk house after gi'ub, 
And others yarn about a girl back home, — 
But French Sav'ree, he only loved his axe. 

Or so we thought ; he cradled it at night 

Up in his bunk. When the sun caught the blade 

'Twas double-bitted, steel-blue, spitting fire. 

He ripped it back and forwards all the day. 

He was the nerviest chopper that we had. 

And the Boss favored him because of it. 

He'd keep two horses skidding after him 

And never miss a stroke; the blue axe bit 

Both ways when he was " limbing " in the woods. 

Oh, he was cordy, muscles just like wire, 

But sullen. What we knew about Sav'ree 

You could speak in one breath; he never said 

Where he had come from, places that he'd worked 

(Though we had heard he came from Canada), 

What folks he had, or maybe none at all. 

He never spent a penny of his pay; 

He drew it from the " Company " in coin 

And buried it somewhere till we broke camp. 

[122] 



Now on the Lake down by the long sand-bar 
Lived old Sabeal, the last one of his tribe 
In the North Woods — a fighting Iroquois, 
And Sav'ree, somehow knowing Indian ways, 
Made friends with him ; we used to see him there 
Helping the old man catch fish through the ice. 
Once every week our shanty cook went down 
To take Sabeal a pail of Christian grub. 
One night she didn't find him at the hut; 
The ashes of his fires were damp with frost ; 
There'd been no fire for close on to a week. 

Now every lumberjack from the Thirteenth 
To Newcomb Lake knew that the old man kept 
A bag of gold hid, in the log shack there. 
He'd been a trapper (fox furs they come high, 
And mink and otter and the young lynx skins) ; 
He always made the traders pay him gold. 
You hate to think ill of a shanty mate. 
But some dark feeling rolled up in our minds, 
And we kept wondering about French Sav'ree. 

Come Spring, when we were peeling hemlock bark ; 

The Sheriff rode in on the logging trail 

And after supper when we all bunked in 

He cornered us, turned round and barred the door, 

And said : " I've come in here to get a man. 

I've got my guns ; don't spring a game on me. 

[123] 



You'll have to give him up — a lumber-jack 
Killed old Sabeal ; his body's floated down 
The Outlet, someone knocked him in the head. 
You lumber-jacks know who — now out with it." 

We swore we didn't know a thing ; we cursed 
The dirty coward. All the while we talked 
Sav'ree stretched in his bunk beside his axe. 
The Sheriff said : " There's one man in this camp 
Guilty as hell ; I'll take you all unless 
You give him up." 

That moment on the edge 

Of his pole bunk, Sav'ree's face showed as white 

As rabbit fur against a black spruce tree. 

He tumbled out down on the floor and screamed: 

" 'Twas I, Sav'ree. ... I keel heem with my axe, 

He was so ol' — and I — see, I am 3'oung 

And he had money, much, much money hid. 

Why should he live and I lose everything 

Because I cannot find a bag of gold? 

That ol', ol' man — Now take me, keel me too. 

He calls me every night ; I hear him groan 

And sleep comes not to me; he walks out there. 

Take me away — 'twas I — 'twas I, Sav'ree." 

The Sheriff got the story out of him 
After he put the bracelets on his wrists. 

[124] 



He loved some girl up on the Sagiienay. 
She had two lovers; one was French Sav'ree, 
But he was poor. Her father drove him out. 
He must find yellow gold to woo and wed. 

It's dangerous to love things that aren't alive; 
They're always sure to get the best of you. 
'Twas that keen, wicked, blue-lipped axe of his 
That leaped out quicker than Sav'ree's weak will, 
And did the deed that drove him raving mad. 

The old lake creaking in the winter gales 
Cried to him " Murder " and " Sav'ree — Sav'ree " ; 
Tortured him slowly till the Sheriff's voice 
Came like a freshet on an icy jam. 

I saw Sav'ree once since our lumbering days 
A-building road up in a convict camp. 
Beaten and doglike, sullen as the rock 
He hammered, still there lay within his eyes 
Something that froze the words down in my throat, 
And for a minute I knew that he saw — 
The girl he'd loved up on the Saguenay. 
Your Frenchy men — now say — their dreams die 
hard! 



[125] 



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